Facing a lifetime of working blue collar factory jobs, the boys spontaneously decide to use the money to go on a vacation to Los Angeles.

The next day, the boys go to a beach boardwalk, where Roy throws an empty beer bottle and it hits an elderly woman (Helen Brown) on the forehead.

Several additional encounters lead to more deaths, including a gay man they meet at a bar, Chris, (Paul C. Dancer), a young couple (Richard Pachorek and Lesa Lee), and an older woman Angie Baker (Patti D'Arbanville) whom Roy kills while she is having sex with Bo.

[2]According to director Penelope Spheeris' DVD commentary, The Boys Next Door had to be cut and submitted to the MPAA ten times to get an R rating.

Scenes that were cut or changed include: The Boys Next Door (entitled "No Apparent Motive" in Australia) was released on VHS in 1986 by New World Video.

Time Out London called The Boys Next Door superior to Spheeris' previous work Suburbia (1984) in that it didn't try to sympathize with the two lead characters while still letting in a "glimmer of understanding into the murderers' feelings.

"[4] Vincent Canby, comparing the film to Over the Edge (1979) for its negative picture of a California teenager and to Badlands (1973) for its "lean and unsentimental" atmosphere, described it as a "very well made, disorienting movie about inarticulated despair and utter hopelessness.