The best way to describe this movie would probably be as the exploitation version of the true-crime Gertrude Baniszewski child abuser case of the 1960s. Whereas American Crime (2007) received critical acclaim and from what I've read was more or less accurate to the actual case (I have not seen American Crime), The Girl Next Door, also released in 2007, which I have recently finished watching for the first time in about 12 years, significantly ratchets up the abuse beyond the actual case.

In The Girl Next Door, the names have been changed from the actual people involved, and the time period altered to the 1950s. The female victim (played by Blythe Auffarth) is shown in bondage, with fairly explicit nudity, and suffers extreme abuse either permitted or committed directly by the matron assigned to take care of her (played chillingly by Blanche Baker) following the death of the girl's parents. The height of the abuse is when she is forced to undergo a clitorectomy (yes, you read that right), carried out by the matron herself.

That particular scene is just one example of the sensationalized aspect of this film, as the real-life victim-- Sylvia Likens --suffered horribly, but, thank God, never suffered that particular form of abuse.

!!! SPOILERS !!!

Tragically, however, in The Girl Next Door as in the actual case, the abused girl does end up dying as the result of her maltreatment. This just goes to show that women can be just as evil as men-- even toward other girls and women.

The Girl Next Door (2007)--

An effective example of shock cinema-- with some quality production values --and if that's your thing, you might like this movie. But most others, understandably, will probably want to skip it.