In genre cinema, evil comes in many (often highly imaginative) shapes and sizes but it’s usually in a form which is palatable to the viewer and apportions blame outside the human realm. We find It difficult to comprehend that someone who looks like us can be inherently evil. However, life sadly doesn’t work like that and we, as a species, are capable of doing the most horrendous thing. This is the backdrop to The Boy Behind the Door. A film which never ducks the serious issues.
When they leave school that day best friends Bobby (Lonnie Chavis) and Kevin (Ezra Dewey) have no idea what kind of hell is waiting for them. On the way home they’re snatched off the street. Bobby wakes up in the boot of a car. When the 12-year-old escapes he discovers that he’s outside an isolated house and that Kevin is locked inside, behind a door. He must find a way to rescue his friend while avoiding his kidnappers, but one misstep could lead to both their deaths.
The Boy Behind the Door is a tense and disturbing cat and mouse thriller which never really lets up. Where David Charbonier and Justin Powell’s film differs from most of its peers is that it throws the audience into the thick of it from the start and never gives you a minute to breathe. From the moment we wake up in the trunk of car we’re kept disorientated, terrified and confused, along with Bobby. Never knowing what is round the corner. And this is what makes The Boy Behind the Door such and impressive and refreshing slice of intense horror filmmaking.
The Boy Behind the Door is released on Shudder on 29 July.
