Flick opens with the World Famous Serial Killers and Other Sick Fucks Roll Call, while offscreen voices puzzle over the how's and why's of such heinous acts. When the title credit parade is over, two spaces are left open. I only wish the two lead characters could come close to claiming those hard-to-earn spots.

Maxwell (GREASE II) Caulfield is the aggressive leader with "something eating away" at his guts. Charlie (PLATOON) Sheen, already showing the promise of future stardom, portrays the easily-led sidekick. Their hometown is a Nazi-American prototype community; with no willing babbage and a life at the factory looming before them, it's easy to sympathize with what happens next. Armed with graduation money, a car, and a stolen poodle, the boys decide to take a road trip to LA and make a weekend out of it.

I wish something truly vile, repulsive and generally anti-social happened, but the movie fails to deliver the goods. THE BOYS NEXT DOOR should've worked as a demented wish-fulfillment fantasy – 'nasty things you always wanted to do to those space-wasting neighbors' kind of stuff. But Penelope Spheeris, director of the abysmal HOLLYWOOD VICE SQUAD, has never impressed me before.

Why should she start now?