There’s something unsettling about “The Girl Next Door.”

The film begins with a series of elongated montage sequences, filled with slow motion and multiple song-oriented transitions. It’s high school nostalgia as a senior class fills out yearbook summaries of their most memorable experiences.

Our poor protagonist, Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsh, “The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys”) can’t even fill out his “I will never forget…” box. He missed out on memories in order to get accepted into Georgetown and eventually nab career as a politician.

None of this is disturbing, but the film is awkwardly moving toward some hazy action.

Director Luke Greenfield (“The Animal,” which should get your warning lights flashing) has built up “The Girl Next Door” as a new and exciting form of teenage comedy-drama, but after duping us into believing him, the film lingers uncomfortably in between genres and emotions.

The movie’s early atmosphere feels like a teen slasher, and a quick dream sequence in the vein of “Final Destination 2” makes you wonder when the bodies will start to drop. Unfortunately they never do, and instead the audience is stuck in the floating crawl space between seamy comedy and overly romantic smut.

Goody-two shoes Matthew feels like he’s missing out on life until the mysterious Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert, TVs “24”) shows up and pushes him to take advantage of life. Of course, she’s also teetering between fondness for Matt and a sadistic urge to get some chuckles out of his utter embarrassment.

She also happens to be a talented and strangely well-established porn star for a girl the same age as Matt. And after forcing him to run naked through the street (as a whacked out attempt at revenge) and swim in his principal’s backyard pool, the reluctant porn queen falls in love with the dorky overachiever, obviously.

Soon enough, Matt’s porn-addicted, wannabe director and best friend, Eli (Chris Marquette), places Danielle as an adult film star. The rest of the film jumbles itself into a painful place. Matt and Danielle confuse each other with protracted advances and hints at mutual sexploitation, before Danielle freaks out and semi-ends their relationship.

Timothy Olyphant (“Go”) steals the screen as Danielle’s “producer” who used to go out with her. His manic portrayal and charismatic insanity make you wish the movie didn’t suck as horribly as it does.

Greenfield can’t cash in on a few good ideas in the same way Paul Brickman did with a quick wit in Greenfield’s too-obvious inspiration “Risky Business.” Where a clever remark could have enticed audiences into hysterics, “The Girl Next Door” opts for an unnecessary expletive or a mean-spirited conversation about being a “fag.”

The film tries to win audience’s hearts before even establishing one of its own. The porn industry comes off as an altogether unfunny entity. It’s never even put into question that an 18-year-old girl shouldn’t see the porn industry as a viable career option.

What would have been interesting would have been some sort of resentment, either from Danielle or one of her way-too-bubbly and excited porn star girl-pals. Matt tells Kelly and the audience that Danielle doesn’t want a life in porn, but it isn’t hard to believe the opposite.

The film’s finale also basks in unacceptable impossibility as Matt and his crew frantically film a porn during his prom to raise the 25 grand that Kelly winds up stealing from a school fund to bring a Cambodian genius to America. The weak script allows for a porn king to save the day and a resolution based on an “ingenious idea” that really doesn’t seem all that grand.

The cast seems to be held back from being entertaining (with the exception of Olyphant, who also got stuck in “A Man Apart” and “Dreamcatcher”) by the wretchedly juvenile script. And audiences won’t be able to enjoy the few laughs because of poor filmmaking. Some of Greenfield’s cuts speed up action in non-ellipses that throw off all attempts at continuity and gratuitous slow motion drags the pace into the ground.

“The Girl Next Door” falters on the edge of violence and bathes itself in unnecessary grittiness (see the adult film convention and strip club scenes), in what appears to be an attempt at hybridity, but what comes off like a toppling juggernaut of contradictory emotional material.

Unfortunately, script and basic filmmaking laws are broken (or intentionally left by the wayside) and Greenfield drops “The Girl Next Door” into an unappetizing realm of failed cinema.

Grade: D