Beyond the Seventh Door

I actually worked on this shoot and I am sure it is no surprise to all of you that Lazar is the same in real life. I know what you are thinking, how can that be? How can someone with such little command of the English language be cast in a movie? I still do not know. His charm, much like someones nails across a blackboard, plays on you day after day until Stockholm Syndrome kicks in and he actually becomes a likable yet still incomprehensible guy. This charm and the fact Bonnie was not so hard on the eyes had me give this movie a 4 out of 10 (OK that and the fact I worked on it). But you all have missed the true brilliance of what went into making this picture, and that started with BD Benedikt its director and Hamid the DOP (and ex-film maker for the Shaw of Iran). Without the personal insight of these gentlemen into what the viewing audience wants, Lazar would not have been half the actor he was in this movie. I suggest strongly that if these two gentlemen were ever given money to make another film and you can find a copy, watch it! They were only getting warmed up by the end of this film. And for the record, it was shot in the basement of the Colonial Tavern across from the Eaton Centre on Yonge St. (Not BD's basement, which was an option). It has since been turned into green space.

This Canadian thriller has to be seen to be believed. It's an ultra-cheap production, made by Marvan Films (a production company never heard of again), and featuring in its main actor the unmistakable Lazar Rockwood, a distinctive-looking Serbian actor better known for playing bad guy henchmen in the rest of his movie parts.

Rockwood's non-acting style takes some beating, it has to be said, and he ever makes the token female, Bonnie Beck, look good by comparison. The weirdest thing about this movie is the plot: Rockwood plays a burglar who becomes trapped in an underground complex of booby-trapped chambers and must use his brain to escape.

It feels very much like an early version of a CUBE-style storyline, or perhaps a fictionalised CRYSTAL MAZE. And it's fair to say that this is an inept film throughout, with direction that's even worse than the acting. It comes as little surprise that Beck is forced to divest her clothing as the running time progresses, leaving her parading around in her skimpy underwear. Otherwise, I'm not really sure what I just watched!

In the annals of Canadian cinema, IMHO, there are only two actors who fully deserve the title Action Hero: the first is, of course, Bruce J. Mitchell who portrayed reformed Zioxx cultist Zap Rowsdower in The Final Sacrifice; the second is Lazar Rockwood as Boris in Beyond the Seventh Door. It is a mystery for the Ages how Tommy Wiseau has become a beloved film industry icon and household name, while Lazar Rockwood continues to be almost ignored. Rockwood's performance in this movie is curious, to say the least. At times, his engagement or lack thereof, is almost like he is in a different movie from his costar. Bonnie Beck. And yet, I could not look away. The film itself is not bad and builds up a satisfying claustrophobic atmosphere. Ms. Beck is quite fetching in her short skirt and becomes even more so as the movie goes on and she loses more and more of her outfit.

Ben Kerr as Dead Man or more accurately Dead (but still breathing every time he appears in the scene) Man was a delight and Rockwood could have taken a lesson from Kerr's restrained performance.

To be honest, this film is genuinely entertaining. Rookwood's lack of acting chops, Bonnie Beck's feminine charms, and Toronto street reformer Ben Kerr playing a breathing dead guy put this in my Pantheon of Great Cinema.

Shot near Toronto, Ontario, this proudly Canadian horror film is truly one-of-a-kind. Beyond the 7th Door is a testament of shear, provocative film-making brilliance in the same league as the world heavyweight champion, "Science Crazed" (truly and indisputably, the worst movie ever made...and I dare you to prove me wrong!)

A trashy couple take a painfully slow journey through an empty castle with seven rooms of deadly traps in search of a mysterious millionaire's hidden treasure. The pair are guided by the voice of a man sounding identical to the voice of Canadian actor Dan Woods (aka Mr. Raditch on the original, and far superior, Degrassi series). Woods is not credited, but the voice is a dead ringer. You be the judge.

Story aside, Beyond the 7th Door is particularly infamous for the casting of phenom actor Lazar Rockwood, the movie's hypnotically hideous "leading man". Rockwood looks like a real-life version of Moe the Bartender crossed with The Toxic Avenger, his presence is nothing short of mesmerizing. Playing an ex-convict named Boris, Rockwood struggles through every line of every scene with broken English and autistic body language. Jerking and twitching spastically, wagging his tongue about, waving his tape measure and Batman-style tool belt, and hopelessly trying to maintain some small shred of dignity, Rockwood literally chews the scenery!

Forced to endure Rockwood's company is the only other cast in the film, Boris's ex-girlfriend and partner in crime, Wendy (or as Lazar might say, "Vendy"), played by Bonnie Beck. Beck is a porno-calibre actress, but next to Lazar, you mistake her for Katherine Hepburn. In a memorable exchange at a coffee shop, Wendy criticizes Boris by saying, "Boris, you're not even a good thief!". Rockwood earnestly replies, "I'm getting better!". Outstanding.

However, the true horror of Beyond the 7th Door is watching a shirtless and sexually charged Lazar Rockwood ravage Wendy's unfortunate body in a dirty, sludge-filled basement. The punchline being that she actually requests this! (I suspect this may have happened between takes and was accidentally caught on film, then thrown in by director Bennedikt for reality TV shock value...though it's a theory)

The hands-down greatest moment in the film is Rockwood jump kicking through a cement wall, flying mullet and all! This should have been looped at least a dozen times, then a dozen more in slow motion. It's genius! The second best part could have been the ultimate death of Boris in the final moments caused, appropriately, by his own unthinkable incompetence... but Rockwood can't even DIE properly! His body explodes OFF camera with not a trace of blood to be seen! (Though this does set it up for Beyond the 7th Door 2: Beyond the 8th Door! Did Rockwood really die? Who knows?)

In the end, Beyond the 7th Door leaves you with many more questions than answers, mostly about Rockwood himself and the events surrounding his involvement. Although these questions will likely never be answered, when the final credits role you will be left dumbfounded and perplexed for weeks to come.

Since Hollywood is on a never ending bender of butchering classic films in remake or "re-imagining" format, I suggest remaking this one. I also would like a Special Edition DVD of Beyond the 7th Door with 5 commentary tracks of Lazar Rockwood reciting one-liners from the film and a 3 hour featurette documenting Rockwood's entire career. A full-colour photo gallery of Rockwood would also be nice, plus some shirtless promotional stills and half a dozen international trailers.

I'll be waiting with my money on the table.

Beyond the Seventh Door is a basement budget film with the premise of people trying to escape a dungeon in which every room has a different puzzle or trap. It predates the more famous film Cube, but it certainly was not the first movie with this theme. Writer/director Bozidar D. Benedikt is originally from Yugoslavia, now Croatia, and has a website that calls himself "a grandmaster of literature" who supposedly invented "a brand new literary style" of religious thrillers, or suspense with morals. Right. The film feels like an extended version of a Twilight Zone episode but with fewer production values.

The leading man is someone calling himself Lazar Rockwood. He appears to have chosen his alias like a porn name before realizing that the film was only PG-13. Or, who knows, maybe it originally was going to be X-rated until the actress saw this guy. Lazar is also from Yugoslavia, and we can only speculate about why he was cast as the leading man. He mumbles, he's stumbling into middle age with a '70s hairstyle, and he doesn't seem like he could solve any puzzles. On the other hand, I kind of like that he's a more realistic depiction of low life scum than we normally see in a movie. He's certainly not the typical underwear model-turned actor pretending he can't get any job he wants just by flashing a smile. I can believe that this guy resorts to crime to get by.

The leading woman is Bonnie Beck, and she seems to be the only reason anyone watches this film. She is charismatic, ends up with most of the dialog. And wears a flimsy French maid's costume that starts losing pieces until she is basically just in her underwear. This seems to have been the actress's largest role in a career that otherwise features appearances as Hooker #1 and the victim of the week in episodes of Friday the 13th, the Series... twice! Of course, this is more a reflection of the type of roles available to women at the time, so it's hard to fault her for just doing what most every actress was doing back then.

The end of the movie does much to redeem some of the earlier oddities with the plot by suggesting that they were not mistakes but intentional. It was not so crazy of a plot twist that it felt like cheating, but in many ways it seemed like too little of a pay off for having to sit through everything else. This is one of these films that would have been much better if it were either quite a lot shorter or replaced nonsense content with something far more interesting. They could have added suspense with better traps, side characters that existed to be cannon fodder, more red herrings, or greater focus on the owner of the mysterious castle. Of course, by adding much of any of that it might as well have just been a completely different movie. This is what we ended up with.