Friday, June 12, 2009

Another Hole In The Head: Someone's Knocking at the Door



This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

Someone's Knocking at the Door starts off good, with an awesome credit sequence and an opening scene that sets the stage for some really depraved horror. It even features a completely incongruous animated teddy bear, which, alas, is never seen again. Also not seen again is the inspiration witnessed in those opening moments.

The film focuses on a group of med students who like to take drugs and hang out in old file rooms. During one of their druggie evenings of drug taking and file reading, they seemingly release the spirits of a murderous 1970s couple who raped their victims to death. Those spirits get back into business by possession and subsequent rapings. To death. The moment one of the duo's murderous appendages is revealed is certainly shocking, to say the least, but it's just too bad that once the story gets going, the film gets bogged down in really bad pacing. A sequence in an interrogation room seems to go on for half the film. Its limited budget is also apparent in the lackluster sets, as most of the movie appears to have been filmed in an abandoned office building. Most of the actors give good performances (lead Noah Segan has been seen in some other horror flicks, as well as 2005's Brick), but a few others suffer from the stilted line delivery of amateurs.

A lot of the film's shortcomings could be forgiven if it had a good payoff, but the only thing that can be said about its ending is it's a huge cop-out. Horror aficionados may want to seek this one out, just for its few moments of originality, but the less-adventurous should probably stay away.

The filmmakers are scheduled to appear at Saturday's 11:45 P.M. screening, and hopefully they'll bring a copy of the movie that isn't branded with the words "PROPERTY OF CW FILMS" at the bottom of the frame throughout the entire film.

The feature is paired with a short called "The Facts in the Case of Mister Hollow," which is a visually stunning animated film that takes a 3-D look into a mysterious black-and-white photograph.

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