There’s something uniquely satisfying about a movie that’s far better than it needs to be, especially when that movie turns out to be an astute satire masquerading as a dumb gross-out comedy.
With a great cast already assembled and a premise that’s as funny as it is simple—that the only thing worse than living next to a fraternity house might be living next to a sorority house—the bar was really pretty low for a sequel to 2014’s Neighbors. Director Nicholas Stoller’s greatest challenge could have been shoehorning in a few new characters while keeping the chemistry brewing between the familiar ones. And who could have blamed him? For fans of the first installment—count me among them—“more of the same” would have been acceptable.
That’s what’s teased in the first few minutes of Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, which opens with a (literal) gag so spectacularly gross it put me off my popcorn for a while. The film’s setup offers a few gentle tweaks to that of the first installment: Now expecting their second child, Mac and Kelly Radner (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) are upgrading to a new home in the suburbs. They’ve just entered a 30-day escrow period, during which time they need only to avoid disaster in order to complete the sale.
In this case, disaster comes in the form of Shelby, Beth, and Nora (Chloë Grace Moretz, Kiersey Clemons, and Beanie Feldstein), three college freshmen who are understandably disgusted to learn that the National Panhellenic Conference essentially prohibits sororities from hosting their own ragers. If they want to party, they’re told, they’ll have to do it at a frat house. What could be safer?
And that’s when this sequel takes its first big leap toward outshining its amiable predecessor. Shelby and her pals attend a frat party, and it’s remarkably similar to the bacchanals that were staged in the first film. This time, though, we see it from the girls’ perspective, and it’s horrifying: The frat house is essentially a giant rape funnel, with neon arrows pointing upstairs, where a banner reads “No Means Yes.” It’s a dangerous world that comes with its own explicit rules, like never drink the punch. Think of it as the Scream of college party movies.
The girls ditch the party and decide to start their own unofficial, girl-safe sorority—right next door to Mac and Kelly, of course. Early on, then, Neighbors 2 takes a big step ahead of its predecessor—the guys of Delta Psi Beta rage because that’s what frat guys do, but the ladies of Kappa Nu rage because everyone is telling them they can’t.
If it sounds like the writers are painting themselves into a corner when it comes time for the inevitable throwdown between the sorority girls and their thirtysomething neighbors, though, rest easy; Kelly and Mac quickly realize that Kappa Nu is capable of a level of psychological warfare that makes the couple long for something as relatively benign as getting launched through the ceiling by an airbag.
But the greatest appeal of Neighbors 2 doesn’t lie in its clever gender twists or endearingly progressive politics. The movie’s greatest strength rests on the perfectly sculpted shoulders of Zac Efron, who reprises his role as the Radners’ former arch-nemesis, Teddy Sanders. Teddy hasn’t navigated life changes as well as Kelly and Mac or Shelby and her crew. His “quarter-life crisis” has left him feeling adrift and unvalued—ripe for exploitation by both the girls of Kappa Nu and the “old people” across the yard. Through plot machinations better left discovered, Teddy inserts himself into the brewing war. The results are kind of brilliant.
As great as the rest of the cast is—Byrne in particular has proven herself to be one of the most gifted comedic actresses of her generation—Neighbors 2 is Efron’s movie all the way. He brings a surprising level of pathos to Teddy, a dim-witted but good-natured bro god who slowly comes to realize that the world he once ruled is being replaced by a very different one.
If this all makes Neighbors 2 sound preachy or even high-minded, it’s not. There’s definitely something sweetly utopian about the world it imagines, where same-sex marriage is just called “marriage” and douchey behavior can be corrected simply by pointing it out. But it still works on the same level as the most delightfully brainless comedy you can imagine—it’s every bit as crass and ridiculous as Animal House, and that’s a compliment—just at a richer, more complex frequency.
April Snellings is a staff writer and project editor for Rue Morgue Magazine, which reaches more than 500,000 horror, thriller, and suspense fans across its media platforms. She recently joined the lineup of creators for Glass Eye Pix's acclaimed audio drama series Tales from Beyond the Pale, an Entertainment Weekly “Must List” pick that has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
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