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[Review] ‘At The Devil’s Door’ Is Creepy, But Cheats the Viewer

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After being wowed by The Possession of Michael King, I was on a bit of an upswing when it came to demonic possession films. Sure, there have been other low-budget possession films that have come and (thankfully) gone, but I still wanted to see what came next. Lo and behold, Nicholas McCarthy shows up with At The Devil’s Door. Now while McCarthy’s film made it’s debut way back in March, I hadn’t heard much about it, other than “it’s by the guy who did The Pact“. Informative, right?

Leigh (Catalina Sandino Moreno) is a real estate agent tasked with selling a difficult house that contains mysterious burn marks on it’s walls. Leigh is also concerned about her sister, Vera (Naya Rivera), who is a loner and not entirely open to social interactions. While preparing the house for selling, Leigh comes across a mysterious girl in a red raincoat on the property (Ashley Rickards). Turns out Hannah has a few connections with the house, one of which is a deal with Ol’ Scratch. As Leigh investigates, she starts pulling her sister into the situation, endangering them both.

At The Devil’s Door wastes little time in immersing the viewer in it’s eerie atmosphere. While we know the antagonist is of the demonic persuasion, McCarthy wisely chooses to only give us glimpses of the entity, be it through it’s beckoning of characters, to shots in the mirror or out-of-focus background shots. You never do get to see the whole thing, and that really does leave the viewer’s head to come up with all sorts of creepy things. Add to that the look of the film, which is primarily dark and desaturated. To spice things up even more, McCarthy decided to take three subplots and weave them together and jump between timelines. While this is might be an instant red flag for many people, as it does lend itself to be confusing, McCarthy does manage to pull it off, albeit not with complete success. Still, it’s a lofty goal, and rather than it being a complete disaster, it does adds a certain amount of misdirection to the entire experience in an attempt to keep the viewer on their toes, preventing them from losing interest.

On the acting front, Moreno’s character is probably the most developed. Leigh is shown to be a responsible and caring individual, while Rivera’s Vera really does come across as someone who prefers to be alone, and is reluctant to accept help. Eventually, Vera does morph into a far more determined character that takes charge. As for Rickards’ mysterious girl, she does a good job of being both scared of the what she’s set in motion, but also showing signs of an inner battle. It’s all about that babysitting scene.

Now I know that this film has been polarizing a lot of people, and I can see why. That misdirection that McCarthy uses does come back and bites him, especially after a certain point in the film involving one of the main characters. Problem is, the sudden switch causes all of our investment in one character to be wasted (McCarthy pulls a Psycho on us), as the other characters have to pick up the slack, but can’t quite do it due to the lack of development. The other issue is with the tying together of the subplots. While again, not totally confusing, there are moments that feel shoehorned into place, and in an effort to keep the pacing going, have been cut down, leaving them vague and causing the film to stumble it’s way to the end. It robs the film of it’s true potential, and coupled with the confusion McCarthy had introduced into the film, leaves the film a missed opportunity.

Calling At The Devil’s Door a missed opportunity pretty much sums it up. The concept of purposely keeping the viewer off-balance while juggling three storylines is pretty ambitious, and the film is well-shot and has some good performances, the film feels like it’s cheating the viewer, as we really don’t get the payoff of investment in the characters we do care about, and the whole thing loses it’s footing by the midway point, hobbling to the end while waving at the viewer without showing the full dance routine. Perhaps if McCarthy had enlisted the help of another writer to help, or if he just stuck to the director’s chair, things would’ve been better. At The Devil’s Door is entertaining, but it’s faults will limit it’s audience to those with the ability to forgive it’s shortcomings.

Video/Audio:

Presented in 2.40:1 AVC-encoded 1080p, At The Devil’s Door looks very good. Colour saturation is consistent with the scenes, which can vary depending on the particular scene. The film has an overall dark look to it, but still retains good detail. No qualms about this one.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track definitely takes advantage of the film’s locations and mood, immersing the viewer with a variety of cool ambient and surround effects. Dialogue is clear and free of distortion. The low end also gets work in the “impact” moments, which again also helps with the immersion.

Extras:

Things start off with an Audio Commentary by writer/director Nicholas McCarthy, who offers up an interesting talk about a variety of topics, from the look of the film, casting choices, the origins of the film, the score, and the influences of films like Psycho and The Shining. Informative and enjoyable.

“Speaking Of The Devil: The Making Of At The Devil’s Door” opens with McCarthy describing the inspiration for the story. The doc then moves onto casting, and includes interviews with the cast. Following that, the piece looks at the story, the themes, the film’s production, including the difficulties in editing the film, and the “post-mortem” of the film. Overall, while there’s some overlap from the commentary, this is still an interesting little piece that does its job as an overview of the production.

Following that are a collection of six deleted scenes with optional commentary with Nicholas McCarthy. The scenes were basically cut for time from previous cuts of the film. McCarthy does a good job of explaining the context of the scenes and the decisions to trim them, but his commentary also highlights the problems of the film.

The film’s trailer rounds out the extras.

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‘Herencia Diabólica’ – 1993’s “Mexican Child’s Play” Finally Has a Blu-ray Release [Review]

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Did you know that there is a Child’s Play-inspired film from Mexico? If you didn’t, you can thank Vinegar Syndrome’s new label Degausser Video for making 1993’s Herencia Diabólica available for the masses to watch. Or at least for the VS hardcore fanbase, Chucky completists and anyone else who needs something like this in their lives.

Director Alfredo Salazar, known for his writing connection to the 70s Santo film series, also serves as the writer here to bring us a film seemingly inspired from the Child’s Play franchise. While it has been recently labeled as the “Mexican Child’s Play” (there’s a special feature on the disc with that very title), the killer doll concept is where the comparison should start and end. Despite having some seeds planted by that franchise, Salazar delivers a story that blossoms into something unique.

Tony (Roberto Guinar) receives a letter informing him that his aunt has died, and he has inherited her estate in Mexico. He quits his job and uproots his life in New York with his wife Annie (Holda Ramírez) to relocate south of the border and move into his new crib. Now I know what you’re thinking, what person just quits their job and drags their wife to another country without having reliable monetary income? Tony does, everyone, Tony does.

And what’s the first thing they do once they arrive in Mexico and check out the estate? They hit the bedroom, naturally. We are treated to a sex scene with an erotica song that feels like a knockoff of “Sadness” by Enigma (remember them?). Sounds fun and all, but the scene takes place completely in the dark and we see absolutely nothing. Maybe that’s why the sexy-time tune was pumping, so we could know what was exactly going down.

While Tony goes on a job interview, Annie explores the estate’s grounds in a tedious chore to experience, going room by room, plodding along. But it does lead us to her discovery of our antagonist—the evil clown doll, Payasito! Of all the things in the house, she decides to bring this monstrosity down to show Tony when he gets home. What an exciting way to celebrate (sic)! Then out of nowhere, she spouts off some exposition about rumors that Tony’s aunt dabbled in the dark arts and now we know where our title Diabolical Inheritance (the English translation for Herencia Diabólica) originates. For those of you who keep score for things like that.

Before proceeding with this review, you really need to visualize what Payasito looks like to truly embrace the rest of the film’s shenanigans. While Chucky resembles a cute ginger child, Payasito resembles a small clown that is much larger in stature than Chucky. That’s because Payasito is performed by an actor (Margarito Esparaza) in clown cosplay whenever he’s on the move (like Mannequin 2), and makes some really horrible facial expressions. Chucky dresses in “Good Guys” overalls and a striped shirt, but Payasito wears a new wave Santa hat while sporting a Sgt. Pepper jacket and Peter Pan tights. As you can now tell, he is quite beautiful.

Back to our story, Payasito begins to spook Annie cerebrally until she becomes unnerved to the point of having a complete mental break down, making her easy prey to eliminate. She dies but the unborn child survives, with Tony believing that her death was caused by her mental instability. Fast forward some years later and the couple’s surviving spawn has grown into child Roy (Alan Fernando), who at this point has already bonded with Payasito to help him over the loss of his mother. Dun-dun-duuunnn!

Meanwhile wealthy Tony remains single, still grieving his late wife, until his blonde assistant Doris encourages him to move on with his life and start seeing other people. And by other people, she naturally means herself. As the old Kanye West song lyric goes, “I ain’t saying she’s a gold digger…”, and it seems that she might be until we learn more about her character. Doris is played by the stunning Lorena Hererra who has an extremely extensive resume in Mexico, and she carries most of the film quite well during the feature’s second half. The singer and former Playboy centerfold for their Mexico edition is by far the most recognizable face in the cast.

Doris and Tony do indeed hookup and she moves into La casa de Herencia, where she does her best to impress Roy and lessen his obsession with the doll. There is a scene where they go to a nearby park without Payasito that is filled with famous fairytale figures, such as Pinocchio, Cinderella and King Kong! What, you didn’t know King Kong is a fairytale? Me neither. But Roy continues to be obsessed with Payasito after their trip, much to Doris’ chagrin.

Her actions to separate him from Roy gets Payasito angry, setting up the film’s most memorable scene. We already know that Payasito is a devil doll like Chucky, but now we learn he also has the power to invade people’s dreams like Freddy Krueger! Does Payasito enter the dream world and concoct a creative way to kill Doris in her sleep? No, he harnesses his power to sexually assault her instead. Yes that actually happens. After she awakens, Doris grabs the doll and tosses him into a lake, only to find him waiting for her by the time she gets back to the house. So now we know he also maintains the ability to “transport” like Jason Voorhees too. This doll is the total package!

More insanity happens before we close out the film with the longest victim chase sequence ever. It makes the previously mentioned painful house search scene seem like an eyeblink. It feels like it’s the film’s entire third act, filled with so much padding that you could soundproof an entire three-story house.

So how’s the transfer? Considering it was created using a mix of VHS and film source elements from 1993, they did one heck of a job! The work they put into it is especially noticeable in the dream invasion sequence, with the pulsing multi-colored psychedelic visuals. Super trippy stuff. Even the film’s score provides a pretty chill vibe, during the times when Payasito isn’t on the prowl.

If anything you read has piqued your interest in the very least, you should give it a shot. But if not, it is best to leave this doll on the shelf.

Herencia Diabólica is now available to purchase at VinegarSyndrome.com.

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