The Open Door - DVD

Film: Whenever there is a full moon in the sky, strange murders occur in small American towns. No one knows what triggers these murders or where they will next rage. However, young Angelica (Catherine Georges) and her friends don't want to let this spoil their good mood and plan a wild party night. But when Angelica is grounded, she has no choice but to entrust her worries and desires to a mysterious pirate radio station and its mysterious "oracle". But what the girl doesn't suspect is that sooner than she'd like, she'll learn what the eerie murder cases are all about, because by making the call, she's opened a door that will bring unimaginable horror into Angelica's life...

Doc Duhame, who has worked on such films as "Mr. & Mrs. Smith", "Die Hard 4.0" or "Men in Black" responsible for the stunts, directed "The Open Door" for the first time. On a mini-budget, Duhame filmed his own screenplay, which boasts a not uninteresting premise. There's no question that with the meager resources Duhame and his team had at their disposal, the best was made of the material. In doing so, Duhame's stunt background is especially evident in the finale. But of course the low budget also brings with it some problems, which unfortunately deprive the film of the opportunity to live up to its full potential.

Besides the somewhat amateurish looking visuals and the very basic special effects, it is primarily the amateur actors who make the action rather unintentionally funny at times. Since the plot is dominated by rather superficial dialogue scenes, especially in the first third, the inexperienced actors quickly reach the limits of their skills here. Still, it's worth being patient, because when the action finally gets going, "The Open Door" can definitely come up with some thrilling moments that horror fans might enjoy. Not for nothing did it win the audience award at the popular "Shriekfest" in 2008.

Bottom line, Doc Duhame's directorial debut may not be much more than more or less entertaining horror trash. But on closer inspection, there's a really neat idea hiding beneath the amateurish-looking surface, and it shines through effectively in the film's more successful moments.

Picture + Sound:The film's low budget is, of course, also noticeable in the technical realization. Neither picture nor sound can get beyond good mediocrity. The German sound has to suffer not only from the rather poor dubbing, but is also much more front-heavy, as the English language version.

Extras: Except for trailers, there is unfortunately no bonus material on the DVD!

Conclusion: "The Open Door" is a solid, but not really stunningly good horror film. But the good idea and some successful shock effects make the independent production then bottom line worth watching. The DVD is technically on good average, but has unfortunately no noteworthy bonus material to offer

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp