Death's Door

Each week on her local cable show "The Seance Hour," medium Madame Camille holds a séance with guests from her viewing audience but it's a sham. Special effects, smoke and mirrors. Everybody behind the scenes knows it - including Camille. What none of them realize is that Camille's psychic powers are REAL.

Her séances actually do open a door to the other side and connect the living and the dead. Tonight the show's producer has booked a controversial guest to boost the ratings. A guest whose past holds a dark, horrible secret. Tonight when their hands are joined to form the séance circle and the door to the other side is opened ...Evil will be unleashed.

And you'll be bored to tears way before that happens!

The movie isn't badly acted, it's just slow beyond belief!

Half way into the movie and you're still waiting for something to happen. And when it finally does, you wish they go back to boring you because the FX are cheesy.

Two people in here are a couple of voice actors from which anime you remembered watching, like Naruto or Bleach. Also, they're married in real life. Aka Tara Platt and Yuri Lowenthal.

This movie got my eyes on it when I looked on Yuri's Twitter account, which leads me to his wife's Twitter account. Just rummaging on the search looking for some videos that could be either the two's voice Reel by typing what year it is. I typed and search 2008 and that's when I caught an old tweet of Tara replied to a another tweet which was where I found a screenshot from the movie called Death's Door (2008), the image is actually the couple's themselves. I had no idea how the hell I ended found this accidentally, which leads me to search this movie that they appeared in.

With low budget films you have to cut them some slack and not compare them to big budget films that rely on special effects to cover up their inadequacies. So, yes, this film has inadequacies and the budget isn't enough to cover them up. But, and this was a surprise to me, this film definitely delivers on plot, gory ways to die, and delivers some very tense moments.

The film is set in a warehouse that's been converted to a TV studio that is used to film a cheap 'getting in contact with the dead via a seance' programme that's entirely fake. The producer of the programme is thoroughly unlikeable, as are a few of the other characters, but most characters are just normal people.

During the filming of the latest episode of the series actual spirits descend on the studio and proceed to trap all the humans in the building before eliminating each person, one at a time, in a different and suitably horrible way. Some of the deaths are not shown on screen, saving on the budget I'd guess, but those you get to witness are quite well done - I particularly liked the screwdrivers in the door sequence.

For a low budget film, some of the effects are pretty bad, particularly those that rely on CGI, but the physical effects are all very good, if not particularly new. The blood is suitably dark and oozes rather than runs like coloured water, and the use of filters to show the viewpoint of the spirits is a good contrast to reality.

Sadly, the acting isn't quite good enough to carry the film, but there's usually another death just around the corner to distract you from wooden performances or badly delivered lines.

If this film had been released in 1978 instead of 2008 it would be a much loved cult classic. Sadly, in today's crowded market, it will probably slip under everybody's radar. However, if you do get a chance to see this film, you won't be disappointed, and the ending wraps things up neatly, which is so rarely true of many horror films these days.

The plot of DEATH'S DOOR revolves around the cast and crew of a psychic medium TV show called SEANCE HOUR, featuring the mystical Madame Camille (Alicia Petrides). Everyone involved, other than Camille, believes its all phony.

Lately, Camille's been "receiving" strange, dark visions that could portend doom for the naysayers. When a mysterious, pompous preacher arrives for the evening's seance the spirits really hit the fan!

While this is a low-budget production with its share of cheeeze, it makes the best of its limited funding. There's gushy gore and a bit of nudity. It loses points for what certainly seems to be a groan-inducing, copout ending.

For lovers of paranormal terror...