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source: At the Devil's Door

At The Devil's Door is a mixed bag of horror elements, there are some great scares and a strong atmosphere, but then there are parts of the story that just seem irrelevant. As for the better aspects of the movie, the opening scene is phenomenal, it does what every movie should do, it hooks the viewer in a matter of minutes. After those great opening minutes, the atmosphere in the movie is nice and thick, and it lasts for just about the entire movie. But the atmosphere can't save the movie from a very odd and spotty narrative timeline that jumps all over the place between past and present for no apparent reason. The movie is the tale of three characters and the middle character is just filler to get from the first girl to the last girl. The second act is where the story starts to get muddy and the excitement level drops significantly, and the questions start to rise. And as for the end (which most people have a problem with), I have to agree, very anticlimactic and disappointing. Like I said above, the final minutes of the movie just ruins the ride, just a lack of logic on the characters decision is just disappointing. At The Devil's Door was the type of movie I really wanted to like more than I did, but looking back, there are just too many empty scenes that don't add up. The whole movie jumps through time like crazy, from the past to the present, then like 7 years into the future, which definitely makes you wonder why a character waited that long to do so? And if you can't get past the middle girl in the film and turn the movie off, you're not really missing much of a conclusion, let alone anything you haven't seen before in the horror genre. www.simplefilmreviews.com

Really hard to make heads or tails out of this one. There's no discernible plot, almost no dialog or action and what little there is is the most trite cliché standard issue 'horror' possible. It's nearly pitch black and the mandatory jitter cam is run of the mill. There are a lot of loud noises. But mostly random snippets and emotional baggage scenes. And slow. Slow slow slow slow slow. It's more of a template for all the things you should try to cram into a movie than it is an actual movie. Others have written that the ending is a disappointment but when it ends at all it'l be a relief. Also weirdly it's for the most part an all female cast. And they all whisper. In the pitch dark black.

A young couple visits the guy's uncle. He's got $500 if the girl plays a game. She picks a happy face pin from a box and has to guess under which of the cups it'll be after the creepy old man spins the cups around. She guesses right 3 times and the third time the pin has an ash cross over it. The uncle tells her she's been chosen and to go to a crossroad and say her name so "he" will know who she is and then gives her the $500. Back at home the girl hears something and she's lifted in the air and thrown around. She tries to bury the money, then burn it but it keeps appearing in her drawer. Next we meet a pretty real estate agent. She has a sister who's an artist and is about to do an exhibition. The agent visits an empty house she's going to sell. There she sees the girl from the intro. She tells the owners who think it may their missing daughter who ran away with her boyfriend. But then it turns out the daughter is found. The agent discovers that the girl she's seeing is someone else who committed suicide. But then, the unseen force kills her. Now her sister, the artist, picks things up. She interviews one of the suicide's friends who tells her all sorts of info on the girl. Then the artist is attacked by the force and ends up in the hospital. When she wakes up from a coma she's told that she's pregnant. During the ultrasound she sees an evil face on the screen and demands the doctors take out the kid. Several years later she visits her creepy-looking daughter. I had high hopes for At the Devil's Door. I enjoyed the writer/director's previous effort The Pact, although he's yet another male who insists on making movies without any significant male characters. Is that what it takes these days to make it in Hollywood? Unfortunately this movie is a step in the wrong direction. The strongest female, Ashley Rickards, gets only the secondary role of the intro girl, while the weakest actress get the more significant role. The main problem though is the nonsensical story. A movie about a demon looking to procreate should make for a good horror movie actually. But here it's told in too roundabout a way. You can't really care about most of the characters including the main character, which is a terrible flaw. Like most movies, this one, too, goes eventually on mute with no one saying much of anything, certainly the demon doesn't say a whole lot, he doesn't even make a sound. That said, Nicholas McCarthy is a good director, perhaps not so much when it comes to telling a story, but definitely when it comes to shooting a movie. And he goes for subtlety instead of hyper explicitness--always a good idea in horror. So when we see the demon, it's usually at a distance, unfocused in the background, or in a mirror reflection. That does make the demon less menacing, which is why he should have been given more of a voice. At the Devil's Door is a movie that had potential but most if it was unrealized.

Not one thing to benefit by trying to watch this attempt at a horror movie. Oh, it's a horror alright, but not as a genre. It's just a horrible attempt at entertainment and misses in every aspect. What a waste. Filming in the dark for such creep movies is formulaic but does not help when all the characters are filmed in the dark, have identical features, the dialogue (this poor attempt barely has any dialogue to critique) is minimal, and there are so many convoluted flashbacks -- if indeed that's what they were -- that nothing makes any sense. Perhaps the writer had several beginning attempts at a few scripts, none completed, then just tossed them up into the air & submitted the way the pages fell on the floor to the film company. That could be the only explanation for how this film rates as a zero in every category.

Yes every other horror movie lives and dies (no pun intended) with the characters making bad decisions. And while the initial beginning of the movie is really strong (despite the pact that is being made not really making much sense), the rest does let off. More bad decisions coming along, one of them been done twice, which is really hard to swallow however you look at it. Home is where the heart is, but this "Home" is telling us something else. It's also not about the heart as much as it is about the soul. But horror movies are different or at least try to be. This has a few things going for it (strong beginning and ending), but also a couple of letdowns too.

I title this: Experienced horror viewers opinions in relation to this movie. I begin by informing you that you should watch this film if you enjoy originality, a good budget, hot girls and spiritual malevolent forces. When you think "a film about the devil", the thought that usually proceeds is "been done before, what's new?", however I am delighted to say that this is not true in this case. Firstly, I was intrigued by how the story progressed through three different characters in sequence, and this is because of the style of the story being told. The story of the teen girl (initial character) came to an end, simply because...well, she died! The story of this individual was to introduce the events that followed, leading up to the ending. I did not get a sense of a twist, might I add. Essentially, without the story of the first character, there would have been nothing to follow on with, and had the film focused any further on the said character it would have been a rather boring film, I must say. Leigh's segment This character, was the next one in the story. Before I say anything further, I would like to say that this is a story about the devil trying to gain entry into the world, not hot young girls. Leigh was not supposed to be interesting, she just bridged the gap between the initial character, and the final character. The story keeps you interested even more when you begin to see cut scenes from the past, revolving around how the initial character was effected by what happened in the introduction. These cut scenes happen at times when they seem most relevant. I'm sorry but if you won't be able to keep up with the film, or you weren't happy with what was happening, or you found it difficult to get into the story of the characters, then perhaps you should just put on a copy of Bambi and eat baby food tonight instead. Because, you weren't supposed to be getting into the characters, although I honestly did not see it coming, I was not disappointed by any means. Actually I was shocked, and it was quite refreshing to not be watching a film that just stuck to one character. Moreover, the sequential character changes were justified, in that the story was moving forward while the plot never changed. The story does not boil down to a supernatural birth. The story was always leading up to the idea that the devil was after something in particular. In this case, it was to be a person. It was NOT the case that the story veered onto the path of evil children and the parent who sets out to stop them at any cost. Actually it seemed quite the contrary. Overall, this is a great movie, different, original, tense, creepy and scary at times, with a new refreshing twist on the idea that the devil could be in the body of a child.

*****This contains SPOILERS******** It's the age old, demon wants a human body to inhabit so it impregnates people story....just it's been done so much better, this is a bit of a pathetic attempt. I wouldn't say the acting was bad exactly, perhaps it was the script and direction that caused the lack of atmosphere, and the inability to relate to any of the characters due to their entire lack of personality. It is such a loose story, girl sells soul, demon impregnates girl, girl kills herself. Girl haunts previous home for a number of years...demon does nothing until some random real estate woman arrives who can't have kids...so the demon kills her and goes after her sister....why? Apparently we don't need to know why. We are informed very loosely that the sisters have no family, and a somewhat strained relationship, seems they have no friends either. I will commend the actress who played Vera for her passive aggressive portrayal, even though we are given no reason as to why she is so bitter. Also what is with the adoptive mother at the end who appears to ignore her child's ability to change channels telepathically; who allows a total stranger into her home to be alone with her daughter, then doesn't even notice when they leave until about 15 minutes later...also how does she find them so easily....Can I also ask why Vera waited 6 years, then turned up to murder her demon spawn with what looked like a kitchen knife tucked in her pants...??? To end, the child looks at her real mother(Vera)with black eyes, yet Vera chooses instead of death,this demon child should be loved by her so kidnaps her....wait, what? I really don't get how or why this film was made. Garbage.

As an avid horror movie fan I've seen my fair share of supernatural horror (sorry slashers are stupid and annoys the hell out of me), I can't take any reviews on IMDb seriously. It shocks me to see better horrors like this one having low ratings whereas atrocious ones like The Possession of Michael King (this was awful), or The Haunting in Connecticut 2 (this was laugh worthy) getting higher ratings. It's really vexing. Now let's get to this movie. The movie as a whole is enjoyable. A girl sells her soul (unintentionally) so she could make her boyfriend happy (and also $500). She then starts getting haunted by an unknown force. If I say anything more it'll be spoilers. The story is okay, not a gem but not bad either. The ending could've gone better. But it's still comprehensible enough to be enjoyable. The movie doesn't follow the usual horror recipe of being a loud scream fest. But in contrast it's very silent which intensifies the ambiance. The performances are the highlight of this movie. There are 3 female leads and all of them give equally good performances. And gives a good few scare performance. Definitely recommend it to a horror fan.