Beyond the Seventh Door

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 no way does this move ever approach anything like good. I've seen productions by HS kids that were better. There was no acting, just people standing in front of a camera delivering lines like they were reading recipes out loud. The writing, again, I've seen better from HS students. This whole movie had the feel of a film school project from a not an "A" student. All of that said, I still found it mildly entertaining with a surprise twist at the end. No, I won't spoil it for you, you'll have to watch it for yourself. Why should we be the only ones to suffer? Seriously though, if you have an hour to kill it's definitely watchable, as long as your sorting your coupons, folding laundry or engaging in some other mindless task. There is a mild sense of curiosity at what the next room will be, but you're more than likely to laugh rather than jump when you see it. And the stone, brick and concrete walls are somewhat less wooden than Lazar. The corpse really was the best actor, as a previous reviewer mentioned. If you're not a fan of bad movies, there's nothing to recommend this one. If you enjoy B or worse movies, give this one a try.

In all seriousness, this film and particularly Lazar Rockwood are so exceptionally bad that it's hard to not watch this movie...multiple times. Canadian cinema and Hollywood have missed the boat on not using Lazar more often, he is the "car wreck" of acting. I just can't look away.

I rated this film a 10/10 and meant it, a film this "bad" yet wonderful, is as rare as any "good" 10/10 film there is.

It's a shame that this film is rarely seen outside of Canada. A true cinematic treasure that will stand the test of time.

Bravo!

When the eerily Billy Drago lookalike, but demonstratively not actor-like, Boris (Lazar Rockwood) is released from prison following his bungled participation in an aborted heist, he fatefully hooks up with his seemingly disinterested ex, the maddeningly delicious, sweet-lipped Femme Fatale, Wendy (Bonnie Beck) who somewhat fortuitously has recently gained access to a key that supposedly leads to her wealthy boss's 'secret room/treasure chamber' that allegedly overflows with unimaginable wealth and brightly glistering booty! With pleasingly brisk exposition, honey-hipped, Wendy and the catastrophically inept thief, Boris enter this crepuscular, multilayered domain, and with laudable alacrity their triumphantly weird, deliciously daft, absurdly contrived nocturnal adventures begin in deadly, treasure-seeking earnest!

My initial keenness in seeing 'Beyond The Seventh Door' was in revisiting the spectacularly odd, engagingly hyperbolic acting of the majestically monikered, Lazar Rockwood, a singularly strange Thespian whose implausibly cool handle is no less conspicuous than his monumental lack of dramatic subtlety, but it is this very autistic overkill which adds considerable 'Bad Movie' grist to this joyfully absurd and winningly implausible tale of an evil plutocrat's labyrinthine castle and its myriad, puzzle-laden chambers that might, perhaps, lead our plucky protagonists to their imminent doom!

Happily, my giddy anticipation of, Lazar's 'acting' proved entirely justified, as maverick dramatist, Mr. Rockwood manifested yet another hysterical display of his sympathetically earnest, hilariously unrefined 'acting', while perhaps not quite on par with his tweaked epicness in 'Fearless Tigers' but still so consistently off-key and stridently bereft of nuance as to suggest that this was some warped satire, the subversive director repeatedly taunting the actors with his asinine dialogue and increasingly implausible narrative contrivances! While 'Beyond The Seventh Door' never quite reached the heroic heights of extreme B-Movie buffoonery, the quirky puzzles were suitably puzzle-y, and it was frequently very, VERY silly indeed! (One can also enjoy a brain-nuking drinking game by having a wee dram each time Wendy inanely calls out, 'Boris!!!???')

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.