At the Devil's Door is an fast-paced, high-tension horror film with surprises and jump scares around every corner. This film had me anxious through it's entire duration as I was never sure when something was going to jump out or appear. This is one of the scariest movies I've seen in a while.
The film starts off with this girl (Ashley Rickards) and this boy she just met embracing each other. Next, the girl is taken to a trailer where she is asked to play a game and if she does so correctly, she will be paid $500. The man in the trailer tells her that she has been chosen by "him" and that she must go to where the roads meet and say her name so that he knows who she is when he's ready to call for her. Flash forward to the future, we are introduced to Leigh (Catalina Sandino Moreno), a real estate agent trying to sell the house where this first girl apparently lived a long time ago. It turns out that weird stuff started happening to this first girl and she had killed herself in that house where this couple lived thereafter. Leigh does not know this and as she's checking out the house, she sees the girl around the place, thinking that it is the couple's daughter who ran away a few months ago. Whatever supernatural entity has consumed the girl at this point tells Leigh she is not what it's looking for and kills her. Enter Leigh's sister Vera (Naya Rivera) who now enters the house to find out about how her sister died. She becomes aware of the first girl and what happened to her by talking to a friend of the girl's and after entering the house, the entity now comes after her. It appears the entity wants to take on a human form.
There's a lot more to the plot but I do not want to give away too much. But overall, I thought the screenplay was well-written. For the first third or so of the movie, we flash back and forth between Leigh and the first girl. Leigh is trying to sell the house (this is present-day in the movie) and the first girl is experiencing all this scary stuff happening to her (this is the past in the movie). So we switch between the entity haunting Leigh in the present and trying to take over the original girl in the past. Now at this point, we have no idea that the original girl had killed herself so while the entity haunts Leigh in the girl's form, we wonder whether she'd dead or alive and if she's dead, how did she die? Well, we find out the answers to our questions by the time the entity kills Leigh so it all makes sense at that point. To be honest, I wasn't even sure whether or not they were flashing back to the past when it came to the original girl, but it becomes clear that that is the case. That was written very well though because the audience interested and asking questions the whole time. Then after that, the story gets so disturbing and so incredibly creepy that I was tense until the very end of the film. The plot really picks up when the entity starts going after Leigh's sister Vera. There is not a single moment where something isn't happening, where you aren't covering your eyes from the screen, and where you are simply shocked beyond belief. So I like how this was set-up: draw the audience in by giving the back story of the original girl and how Leigh comes in contact with the entity for the first half, then focus on the entity trying to get inside Vera during the second half. By doing this, it is not only known that Vera is under attack from some supernatural creature but we also know how it found her and what it wants exactly. So excellent job to Director and Writer Nicholas McCarthy!
This is an excellent horror movie because of all the jump scenes and because of the creepy atmosphere that this film's setting creates. Personally, I jumped about 10 times and actually screamed as a result of one of these scenes. This film does an excellent job of keeping you extremely tense and making you want to cover your eyes because you simply don't know when something is going to jump out or appear because it happens so much. Even though you are expecting it, it still startles you! Often, what they would do is show you in the background that something is there but then make it go away but this warns you that a scare scene is coming. The warning doesn't help! It just makes you more frightened and apprehensive about what's coming and it is a very effective tool for a horror movie to use and this one executes it wonderfully. I also liked how there were some scares where we got to see the entity's natural form and some where he is still inside the original girl and she pops out of nowhere. A mix of these two rather than just overusing one or the other makes them equally scary whenever they pop out unexpectedly. The setting also helps to build this tense atmosphere. The house is large, dark, and there are many crawlspaces and closets for this thing to be hiding in. There are also a few scary moments in Leigh's house before she dies and Vera's apartment. All were creepy places and all generated an uneasy feeling. Perhaps it is good that all the scares don't take place in one place because that might make it lose its effectiveness and we might become aware of places where the entity could pop up over and over again. Utilizing these other dwellings eliminates redundancy in setting and atmosphere.
The cast did an outstanding job, great performances all around! Naya Rivera as Vera was the best performance in my opinion. We also get to know the characters very well through the script. We find out a lot about the original girl and what happened to her after she played that game in the trailer when Vera talks to a friend of the girl's. Rivera's performance also helps us care for Vera and feel all of the pain and suffering she is going through. She is a very likable character and the audience feels bad for her suffering at the hands of the evil entity. We don't get to see that much of Leigh since she's killed early on but Moreno did a good job playing her role and Leigh shows a lot of love and compassion for her sister which makes her a good character as well. Believe it or not, we also feel bad for the original girl because she can't help what the entity is doing to her and she actually does a noble thing by killing herself (you'll see what I mean). So very well-written characters!
Overall, At the Devil's Door is certainly one of the best horror films of 2014. I highly recommend you give this film a viewing, but don't watch it by yourself or late at night before you go to bed!
BaD BiRdS: 4/5- EXCELLENT FILM!
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