racy tabloids, stage anything with heaps of pomp and circumstance and produce snappy, disarmingly charming films that make you grin.

I don't know what it is about those Brits, maybe its that `stiff upper lip' philosophy, their proper up-bring or their dry sense of humour, but the English seem to possess an remarkable ability to consistently export films that make you smile.

Now I'm not talking about rolling around the aisles of a movie theatre, slap-your-knee kind of laughter -- their thick accents prevents us non-Brits from fully understanding, let alone appreciating, everything they are saying to laugh that hard. I'm talking about a steady stream of chuckles which makes you shake of your head because you can't believe you find humour and take delight is such simple human absurdities.

Four Weddings and Funeral, The Full Monty, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels -- the British truly have the market cornered on refreshing films devoid of all the Hollywood trappings and glitz.

Now I'm not saying that Nasty Neighbours is quite up there with these modern-day British classics, but I can't help but think that if this dark comedy doesn't open a few doors for film's creative team, then their next project will be a screen gem that will catapult them into the big times.

Nasty Neighbours features the bumbling, yet likable, Peaches who live what can only be called the epitome of miserable suburban life -- horrible jobs, mounting bills and a dysfunctional, yet loving, marriage.

The only joy they found were in their neighbours who one day move away to sunny Australia, shattering their mundane world.

You can't help but feel for Mr. Peach. Everyone has their own personal story of when they were down on their luck so somehow and on some level you connect with this poor ol' bloke.

To top it all off, the Peaches new neighbours are the `flashy' and much younger Chapmans -- a couple who could not be more different from the Peaches, but equally as eccentric in their own way.

As the Peaches world crumbles around them, some of the twists in the script does borders on the ridiculous. But for some zany reason, you go with it and allow the film to sweep you away on an entertaining one-way ticket to tragedy.

I honestly do not know exactly what it is about this dark comedy that makes it so likable.

Maybe its because everyone can probably see some small eccentric traits from the film's characters in the people around them and yes, even their neighbours. After all, everyone has at least one neighbour from hell story they can't seem to forget.

What ever the reason, all I can say is that Nasty Neighbours gets under your skin -- kind of like an annoying, nasty neighbour.

Nicole Williams Smith MOVIES MPC