Angelica (Catherine Georges) has a crappy life. Her parents are overprotective bitches, her rich best friend is a backstabbing piece of crap that's trying to come between her and her boyfriend and there's this clique of arrogant, obnoxious jocks who are also apparently pretty well off considering one of them was driving the rest around in a new Hummer.
Angelica is destroyed when her parents won't let her go to the biggest party of the year, and she's tired of catching crap from all the jocks. Generally, she's just sick of everything in her life, but she's a good girl, so she does what her parents say and stays home on the night of the party, which also happens to be the one night of the month that the pirate radio station broadcasts on channel 99.9 FM. What's so special about that? Well, there's an urban legend that says that when people call into the show to talk to The Oracle, make their wishes, and then seal it with a vow, that their wishes will come true.
Sick of everyone walking all over her, Angelica tunes into the show, and finds encouragement in the words of the announcer who's telling everyone listening to take control of their lives and to stop letting others dictate to them. Then he turns the mic over to The Oracle, who promises the listeners that their wishes can come true if they only wish hard enough and make a vow. Fed up, she calls the show and tells The Oracle that she wishes that her parents wouldn't control her life anymore and that the jock kids would stop messing with her and that this other girl would never touch her boyfriend ever again, etc.... Once the wishes are made, The Oracle has her say the vow and then, well, I bet you can imagine what happens. Her best friend, the jocks, the girl who was touching her boyfriend...and her boyfriend all end up over at her house. That's when the evil entity shows up and starts possessing them once at a time and all hell starts breaking loose.
The Open Door is...well, let me preface this by saying I didn't really know what to expect. I kinda vaguely knew what it was about and I saw the trailer, but you never really know until you actually see the movie. What I got when I watched it though, is one of the best indie horror films I've seen in a very long time. The casting, the acting, the story, the stunts, the effects, the production quality...they were all absolutely first rate. The only thing that was good, but didn't really measure up was the visual quality of some of the darker scenes, which got a bit grainy at times. In general though, this was an amazingly well done indie horror film.
There were several things that really struck me as I watched this film. One big thing was the quality of the stunts. You don't often see a lot of good stunts in indie films, but this one had some really good fights and other things going on. Another thing that struck me were the great effects. When I say effects, that encompasses visual, make up, gore and other effects. All were far above and beyond anything you usually see in indie films.
The story itself, which is the foundation of any film, was really well written. The story flowed really well and was edited nice and tight so that no part of it felt like it was dragging, yet it progressed in such a slow, methodical manner that it really built up to the climax in a great way.
As for the cast, each person really brought out the best in their character and really understood their role. Doc Duhame wrote and directed this film, and I'm sure he had a hand in helping his cast to really shine. These folks are all very talented and should be really proud of the work they did in this film.
It's nice to come across an indie film of this caliber. It really shows what indies are capable of with a decent budget and a highly talented cast and crew. This film was far better than most of the watered down, crap horror films coming out of Hollywood today. Hollywood's pretty much forgotten what horror is supposed to be. I keep waiting for them to put out a damn horror film with freakin' muppets in it. It's gotten that lame. Sure there's an occasional gem that squeaks through their grubby fingers, but for the most part, if you want great horror, you go indie. This film is one of the greats, and I highly recommend it. You will absolutely not be disappointed with this one. It's simply put, a really fabulous example of the best in indie horror.
If you'd like to find out more about this film, you can check out the film's website at http://www.theopendoormovie.com.
