The Boy Behind the Door, 2020.
Directed by David Charbonier & Justin Powell
Starring Lonnie Chavis, Ezra Dewey, Kristin Bauer van Straten, Micah Hauptman, and Scott Michael Foster.
SYNOPSIS:
Two young boys are kidnapped and taken to a remote farm but every one of their escape attempts are foiled.
The Boy Behind the Door begins with a eerie wide shot of a dark forest, an image that very much sets the tone for a movie that goes to very dark places with its subject matter, but for a movie that tackles child abduction in under 90 minutes it does extremely well in keeping things tense and effective.
Two young boys are out playing one day when they both get abducted. One of the boys, Bobby (Lonnie Chavis), manages to break his way out of the car boot he has been shut in and goes into the nearby farmhouse after he hears his friend Kevin (Ezra Dewey) screaming for help. What follows is a taut and emotional thrill ride as the boys come face-to-face with their abductors and try to find a way out, not knowing where they are or how they are going to get home.
The horror genre is full of child actors who have gotten on the nerves of audiences (Bob from The House By the Cemetery being the go-to) but thankfully there are no such annoyances here as The Boy Behind the Door is carried by the performances of its two young leads, especially Lonnie Chavis as he has most of the heavy lifting to do. We don’t get much of a backstory or any context about the characters but that doesn’t matter here as pre-teenage boys don’t really have backstories, but we do learn that Bobby is extremely loyal as he has several chances to escape and chooses not to; perhaps it would have been better for him to run away and get help, but would Kevin still be alive by the time he got back? Maybe, maybe not, but Lonnie Chavis sells the conflict that Bobby has in facing a situation that no child should ever have to face.
And what of the antagonists? Again, we don’t get a backstory as they are just kidnappers. There are dropped lines of dialogue about selling them on to ‘customers’, which is all you need to know about who these people are and what they are up to, and despite not having much of a character the female kidnapper (played by Kristin Bauer van Straten) is one of the most terrifying villains we have seen in a horror movie for a while, not only because of a superb performance but because of how the filmmakers frame and light her when she is stalking about, and enraged women brandishing weapons are always more scary than fantastical monsters, especially to a child.
Coming in at 88 minutes long, The Boy Behind the Door is essentially a game of cat-and-mouse for most of that running time and the movie ends at exactly the right moment, mostly because it allows you to unclench yourself but also because there is nowhere else for it to go. There are a few minor quibbles, such as a scene that is obviously referencing The Shining but there are references and then there are shameless rip-offs – this one being the latter – and as for the scene where a cop shows up at the house, let’s just say that you know what is going to happen before anybody in the movie does because we’ve seen this generic standoff situation played out hundreds of times before.
There are some moments of humour – such as Bobby finding a landline dial phone but not knowing how to use it – that offer glimpses of hope amongst the dark shadows and bleak landscape, and some gnarly gore that is used sparingly and doesn’t threaten to overtake the tension, and directors David Charbonier & Justin Powell pretty much get the balance right between the suspense and the violence, making The Boy Behind the Door a very grim but pleasant surprise.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
