Iron Doors 3D

One man, one dead rat, one room. These are the ingredients of the German 3D thriller "Iron Doors", a low-budget experiment that was certainly well-intentioned, but went all to hell by its execution.

Mark (Axel Wedekind) wakes up in a barren room. He doesn't know how he got here and thinks the whole thing is a bad joke by his friends. But when the heavy iron door that locks the room doesn't open even after hours, Mark slowly realizes that he has become a pawn in a very nasty game here. For several days he must try to dig his way through the wall to freedom with the few resources at his disposal, drinking his own urine and feeding on maggots. But when he finally makes the breakthrough, he has to realize that his nightmare is far from over.

Substitutes from "SAW" or "Cube" are linked here to a not uninteresting initial situation, which could have had the potential to be a thriller. But after ten minutes at the latest it becomes clear that this has not succeeded. Because even if Axel Wedekind has just received an award for his role, his performance simply can't be called convincing. The actor, who is also the producer of the movie, acts wooden and strained cool. It may be that a lot of the dubbing of the film, which was shot in English, was messed up, but the constant swearing and sayings like "I'm too young for this shit" or "No silicone, just the way I like it" - uttered in what is probably the most unerotic sex scene in film history - are just embarrassing. It becomes clear time and again that Wedekind would like to be as cool as Bruce Willis in "Die Hard", but he just isn't. He may be heavy on character, but he's just not strong enough as an actor to almost single-handedly carry a psychological chamber drama like this.

Also in terms of craft, "Iron Doors" leaves much to be desired. For instance, the director quite obviously fell in love with the shot of a maggot crawling out of a dead rat's eye so much that he uses it multiple times. The 3D technology used is utilized quite nicely in some moments, but the opportunity to enhance the claustrophobic or the psychologically grueling aspect of the story through it was not taken advantage of. Every now and then there are moments where the potential of the idea shines through. But it never breaks through and so soon only boredom and workmanlike mediocrity dominate.

The whole thing then also culminates in an unspeakable finale, which is stalled so quickly that there is not even the possibility to recognize, let alone appreciate, the director's perhaps brilliant intention. Rather, the ending just seems ridiculous. I'm really sorry for criticizing the movie like this, because on the one hand it's obvious that the intentions were good, on the other hand it's also clear how hard it is to make a movie like this with a low budget. But even the best intentions don't make a good movie, and that's exactly the case with "Iron Doors". Therefore also applies: only for genre fans only very conditionally worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp