Someone's Knocking at the Door

Starring: Noah Segan, Andrea Renda, Jon Budinoff, Ricardo Gray, Silvia Spross

Synopsis:

When Ray, a medical student, is brutally murdered, his friends try to come to terms with his death – and the manner in which he died: brutally raped to death. Brought in for questioning by detectives, the group try and recount the last time they’d seen Ray, when they’d experimented with an obscure drug and researched the case of psychopaths Wilma and John Hopper, who’d murdered their therapist in their hospital...

Chad Ferrin’s bizarre, transgressive, drug-fuelled horror movie has a hell of a lot to offer the discerning horror fan. It opens with an ominous credit sequence in which pills and tablets of every shape and colour rain down in front of the screen, to some bizarre imagery, a sort of twisted childhood memory...

Then we meet Ray, and witness his last moments. It’s not pretty, that’s for sure, but it’s a powerful scene which is likely to leave every single male watching it very uncomfortable.

The next scene, however, in which we meet most of the rest of the group, only half works. On the one hand you have the principal, giving out wrong instructions and information through a loudhailer, which is pretty amusing. Unfortunately the group of friends aren’t so amusing, no matter how hard they try. The stuttering Joe and dickhead Sebastian just push too far with their dialogue. This also makes the pre-interrogation scene drag as well.

Fortunately, Justin (Noah Segan) gets his own intro, a dark dream in which he is confronted by Ray in the morgue. It’s an unsettling dream which shakes Justin considerably. He heads off to a party to try and find Meg, but ends up talking to Joe and Annie (probably the coolest character in the film). It’s clear at this point that Justin is still suffering side effects of the drug they took (and has followed it with anti-depressants). He also starts getting glimpses of the “woman” who visited Ray...

One of the many things this film gets right is conveying the distorted, altered perspective of being under the influence. There’s something a little “off” with Justin’s perception of reality – audible static, time jumps – that keep the audience off guard. It’s some of the most effective audio and visual editing I’ve come across in a while. The horror visuals owe a lot to the “body horror” of David Cronenberg and the dark sexuality found in Clive Barker’s short stories. And Legend of The Overfiend (look it up). Let’s just say there are some very bizarre and scary prosthetics on display! The setpieces are excellently done with a high WTF factor. The best is also the last, a desperate chase through the hospital corridors.

The film does an excellent job of selling a typical horror movie premise – a psychokiller back from beyond the grave – but when you get inside it you discover it’s something even more twisted, and begs a second watch to see if it all fits as well as the ending wants you to believe.

Verdict:

Other than a couple of very annoying characters, this is an excellent, disturbing horror flick which also has a great sense of humour. Also, check out the excellent evocative score by Brad Joesph Breek, and see if you can spot Vernon Wells among the cast!

8 out of 10 – recommended (MikeOutWest)

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