The Devil's Doorway Reviews

Two priests are sent to investigate a possible miracle in a home for women of ill repute run by nuns only to find that the goings-on point to something much more ominous. Things soon escalate and the truth becomes unraveled. The film is formatted as a document of the priest's investigation.

I'm at odds with "The Devil's Doorway", then again that is usually the case when I come across a horror movie centered around wayward nuns. Maybe I should learn my lesson. More often than not I'm left feeling unfulfilled or exposed to a bit too much. There never seems to be a middle ground with this niche sub-genre. In the case of this particular film, the audience is kind of left high and dry. Don't get me wrong, there is much to be said about "less is more" but there is also such a thing as "not enough". Devil's Doorway, falls square in this arena.

The film does a number of things right, if I'm being completely honest. The cast is quite good, the effects subtle and thankfully not dependent on digital wizardry, the costume design is fantastic, there is the occasional eerie atmosphere conjured up here and there, and the approach of a video document definitely gives it a unique flavor. Despite this the film seems stuck in a mire of familiarity.

Yes, ultimately "The Devil's Doorway" borrows way too much from superior sources to avoid comparison. If I were to give you a description of the film using those it clearly was inspired by, I'd say that it is The Exorcist meets Rosemary's Baby by way of The Last Exorcism. While the conceit of what essentially amounts to the found footage approach helps for a while to give it a spark of life, eventually you just find yourself spotting the similarities and how they were more aptly employed elsewhere. In short, the movie is not as good as any of the others.

That's not to say that the film is awful. No, it's relatively engaging and competently made but it never delivers on anything especially new or interesting to justify its use of familiar tropes and ideas. It also makes the gross mistake of leaving way too much to be deciphered by the viewer as previously mentioned. At the end, though you've pretty much have it all figured out, you're still left wondering if you missed something or if there was more they could of done. Again, this is not because of any sort of confusion but more because of the film's inherent deficiency to deliver something impacting at the end.

Really, a culmination to this movie that made it stand out could of done wonders to the otherwise overly familiar concepts. Alas, it does very little toward that goal and thus renders itself quite forgettable and that's a real shame. 5/10