Have you ever been watching a movie and thought it’d be better if it were a different genre? The Jonah Hill starring The Sitter springs to mind as a prime example of what I mean. It is intended to be a comedy, but it never generates real laughs. However, the dynamic between Hill’s character and the two kids is disarmingly sweet, and their plight offers moments of interest. As such, if the film had committed to being a drama through and through, it would be a better overall watch.
Writer-director Billy Chase Goforth’s familial horror film Door In The Woods is another recent example of a film that is trying to shoehorn itself into the wrong genre. Husband and wife Reed (David Rees Snell) and Evelyn (Jennifer Pierce Mathus) are barely keeping it together. Their recent move has been hard on them, and their son Kane (John-Michael Fisher). Making matters worse is that the job prospects are not what they were led to believe, though Reed’s job at a nearby private school helps some.
“…enlist the help of Evelyn’s medium friend Uriah to bring their boy back.”
One day, the family is out for a hike and find an upright door, sans a house or walls, in the middle of the woods. Evelyn likes it, so they bring it home and install it. It is not very long until creepy sightings and strange occurrences are happening in their home. But things become dire when the supernatural entity behind the gateway to the other realm kidnap Kane. Now, the parents enlist the help of Evelyn’s medium friend Uriah (CJ Jones) to bring their boy back.
As a horror film, Door In The Woods is neither atmospheric nor scary. The few times before Kane’s taken that something eerie is meant to happen, it comes across as cookie-cutter, almost expected even. While tidying up, Evelyn walks from the kitchen to the den then back. She’s facing away from the hallway, and in the background, the ghostly apparition of a little girl is moving closer to Evelyn.
"…have you ever been watching a movie and thought it'd be better if it were a different genre?"
What was the contract they signed? Hard to interpret the speech of the deaf guy.
Hello, Mr. Lepire.
Thank you for your review.
This film is indeed “fascinating and well-acted” but
it’s horror of the SPIRITUAL kind.
If I may, here is my take on this soul-provoking film:
This is a film that goes BEYOND “tropes” and “a cheap jump scare”
and into what is clearly a MORAL dilemma.
We are being asked the hard but necessary question:
What would YOU do?
At the start, we know that the family has moved to a new city,
and that the troubled son, Kane, is being bullied at school,
but we don’t know why.
We have a door in the middle of the woods that is seriously creepy,
yet this does not deter Evelyn from taking it home with her,
(despite the warnings from the lady living in the woods)
and without so much as a peep from her robot–I mean–husband, Redd.
When the door proves “problematic”, he just makes a joke.
What takes place at the film’s ending is deplorable.
And once again, Redd the zombie–I mean–husband,
just sits there in silence as his wife allows the unthinkable to happen,
although he too, is complicit.
Now take a closer look at the characters’ names.
Ring a bell?
DOOR IN THE WOODS is about The Fall of Man.
REDD is the root word of ADAM which means “Red Man”.
EVELYN is the longer version of EVE.
KANE is a homophone for CAIN, brother of Abel.
What this couple did and did not do,
THIS, Mr. Lepire, is the REAL horror of the film.
~Maria