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Streaming users seduced by an unintentionally hilarious erotic thriller that’s more tragic than titillating

About as erotically stimulating as doing your tax returns.

the boy next door
via Universal

The main selling points of The Boy Next Door made the marketing campaign a fairly straightforward one, seeing as we’re talking about an erotic thriller starring Jennifer Lopez that was produced by Jason Blum’s Blumhouse, and directed by the dude responsible for The Fast and the Furious.

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Sure enough, the utterly terrible movie recouped its meager $4 million budget at the box office 12 times over, even if it took the wrong sort of pounding from critics and audiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, The Boy Next Door struggled to perform beyond a 12 percent score, while a 33 percent user rating did at least highlight that it held more stamina among the target demographic.

the boy next door

That being said, it’s become a well-known fact of life that cinematic titillation is one of the most constantly reliable forms of filmmaking to experience a resurgence on streaming for reasons that surely require no explanation, so we’re not entirely surprised to find the widely-panned sex-crazed story having stiffened back up on-demand.

Per FlixPatrol, The Boy Next Door has snagged a spot on the worldwide watch-lists of both Prime Video and Rakuten this week, with subscribers desperate to see what happens when Lopez’s high school teacher gets in way too deep after having a one night stand with a student, which soon threatens her life on both a personal and professional level when their amorous interactions evolve into outright obsession.

Sadly, the results are a great deal more stupid than they are steamy, not that ridiculous plot developments have ever stopped the erotic subgenre from reaching a satisfying climax.