The Open Door

In The Open Door, a teenage girl named Anjelica (played by Cathrine Georges) is stuck at home after being grounded... forcing her to miss a party she'd been planning to go to.

As her parents leave to have fun away from home, Anjelica sulks, and decides to listen to the radio. As the night progresses, she finds herself listening to a pirate radio show that runs only once a month - the night of a full moon. Fed up with her putrid, steroid-chugging friends, she decides to call into the station, and speak with the prophet/DJ.

The Oracle, as she calls herself, answers at the station, and asks Anjelica to make a wish for anything she wants. Anjelica is hysterical at the actions of her assumed boyfriend, and hastily wishes for him and everyone around him to leave her alone, among other things. Soon enough she starts hearing and seeing horrible things as a result of her wish. And her friends aren't exactly happy with her wishes.

While watching this, I could certainly tell that the cast was having a ton of fun when they made The Open Door. When the cast is enjoying themselves, the viewer can relax knowing that they're going to be entertained. I wasn't entirely clear on what was happening to Anjelica's friends... at times they looked like zombies, not to mention acting like them. But when I realized what they were really up to, I was pleased with the story turn.

Most horror movies in this vein would take the familiar path of having one guy carrying an over-sized knife, on a path of bloody destruction. I appreciate that The Open Door takes none of the familiar clichéd paths that everyone's grown extremely tired of. The effects are solid... people are flying everywhere, bodies are set on fire, eyes are glossed over. All of this is well done for an independent film.

Perhaps the one fault of the movie is the ending. I know that it's very hard to craft a good ending to go with a great movie - especially hard for a horror/thriller. There's only a handful of ways to end a movie where so many die. The ending is a *flash-crang* scene, if you'll allow me a new term for a scene you'd find in most every scare film out there. Ending a fully original movie with something I've seen before is a slightly disappointing last impression to leave.

A pirate radio station is granting callers their hearts' desires. But as some teenagers find out, be careful what you wish for.

One review here says this is a great spoof that captures your interest from the start.

Not so much. I don't think this is a parody at all and I found it rather tedious, hard to follow in parts and dull.

The setup takes forever and does nothing to further the plot.

You're literally 40 minutes into the movie before she makes her wish and by then you have a wish of your own -- that the movie would end.

By the time the action starts you have 20 minutes remaining! So you basically sit through an hour plus of nothing for the payoff and the payoff sucks.

Highly entertaining. This is probably the best horror spoof i've ever seen, it hits every cliché right on the head, perfectly. It's funny, i mean, seriously funny, from the intentionally poorly acted scenes of the innocent daughter and controlling over protective parents, to the bitchy backstabbing friend. The Open Door is good solid fun right from the start. The imagery used in some of the jump scares, not only did their job in making me jump out of my seat, but had me laughing my ass off after i realized what i just freaked out over (watch out for a mannequin head turn transsexual). This would be a great movie to watch with some friends over many a beer! It never stoops into the outright silliness of Scary movie, it actually takes on a silent seriousness to it, and strangely, somehow, keeps you invested in the lead character.

This film is just fun from start to finish. Rent it now!

I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty tired of 30-year-olds pretending to be teen aged clichés. And this steaming cinematic extrusion packs in most of Canoga Park's middle-aged bartenders and wait staff into one long, unintentionally hilarious carica-turd of high school archetypes terrorized by...oh who cares? I mean, really, if you can stop laughing at grown adults pretending to be misunderstood adolescents, you'd be bored by the plodding mash-up of the Wishmaster, When a Stranger Calls, and a plethora of cursed-media movies (like The Ring). Seems the producers spent their entire budget on by-the-numbers post- production effects you've seen a million times before, and stock sound effects.

In the end, it's an unintentionally entertaining wad of poor acting and amateurish direction, wrapping disconnected plot ideas and an obtuse sense of contemporary dialog. If you're as high as the producers who green-lit this thing, then this is the movie for you. Just try not to wonder how "high school students" have male pattern baldness.

In THE OPEN DOOR, Angelica (Catherine Munden) listens to a mobile, pirate radio station -999 FM!- that only broadcasts during the full moon. After spending hours listening to a host known as "The Oracle", Angelica learns to use her mental powers to get what she wants.

What could possibly go wrong?

The story is along the lines of THE MONKEY'S PAW, illustrating how getting what we think we want in the short-term may have long-term, unexpected consequences.

Ms. Munden is convincing in her vengeful role, and the radio DJ is pretty creepy. Recommended for fans of bizarre, supernatural movies...