The Open Door – DVD Review

The Flick:

The image on the DVD box cover for The Open Door is rather misleading. It shows the lead actress (the truly lovely Catherine Georges) pressed up against a door with a hooded man holding a knife coming through it. This makes the movie look as though it’s a mad slasher, but that is far from what it sets out be be. It tries to be a supernatural thrill ride much like The Evil Dead, not something like Friday the 13^th. Sadly, this flick falls rather short of its intended mark. In fact, it could’ve been so much more.

The story concerns a pirate radio broadcast that calls itself The Open Door. The show only airs on the full moon of every month. On the night of a big party good girl knockout Angelica (Georges) can’t go because of her strict parents. She really wants to be there because good guy Brad is going to be there and she wants to spend some time with him. Also, her back-stabbing two-faced ‘mean girl’ BFF Staci (Sarah Christine Smith) is there as well. Staci also has eyes for Brad, it seems. She encourages another girl to start kissing Brad while she,with a borrowed camera phone, snaps some shots. The pictures are promptly sent off to Angelica.

In the mean time, Angelica finds the Open Door radio show which sounds to her like a motivational program. Angered by her parents and her so-called friends—which includes handsome bully Owen (Ryan Doom) and his troupe of obnoxious jerks—she calls into the show and wishes they would all just leave her alone for good, and some wishes do come true. After some images of her parents—who are out of town—in bed becoming bloodied up somehow, these same friends show up at her house to give her a good scare. This is when the fun begins.

It’s true that Sam Raimi’s classic tale of possession and gory mayhem had next to no character development. But, his style over substance worked well because his style had great flow that kept the action moving. Besides, at the time of its release no one really had ever seen anything like it before. This film has some good moments of supernatural thrills. And, there’s some good jump scares early on after Angelica makes her wishes. Writer/director Doc Duhame breaks the action up with scenes that, on one hand, do advance the plot along, but on the other hand, much of this time would’ve been better served with at least a little character development. There’s much more plot here than Evil Dead‘s simple premise. The Open Door –and the audience–would’ve been better served with some believable characters to care about. Besides, Duhame doesn’t possess that same level of visual mastery that Raimi exhibited on his first feature film.

I know it may seem unfair for me to compare these two films to each other. But, the influence is far too obvious for me not to. Though there’s a couple quick nods to other films, like The Exorcist, Ghosts of Mars and Poltergeist; the main influence is clearly The Evil Dead.

The DVD:

Audio/Video:

The image quality is passable at best. Nothing is ever too dark. And, that counts for something. There’s good use of the 5.1 Surround Sound most with the score, but there’s some very good moments with the sound effects as well. The disc also includes English 2.0 Stereo and French 2.0 Stereo.

It may only be me, but I’m not at all sure if the trailer to the movie you just saw is much of a Special Feature. I don’t care if menu leads you to a page that has the title Special Features (and that’s plural, folks!) and the only thing you see is THE OPEN DOOR TRAILER.

The Flick Rating:

The DVD Rating: