Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Michael_Elliott Don't Open the Door! (1975) * 1/2 (out of 4) Thirteen years after seeing her mother brutally murdered, Amanda (Susan Bracken) returns to her hometown when she receives a call saying that her grandmother is about to die. Soon after arriving Amanda starts to realize that something strange is happening and after receiving some prank calls she realizes she's not safe. Director S.F. Brownrigg made five films in his career and he's gained a pretty big cult following over the years and it's interesting to read reviews from his fans because all of them are mixed on what film of his is the great. The most popular is certainly DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT but it seems that this film has some calling it his best with others saying it's his worst. I think the film shows some growth from Brownrigg's 1973 film but at the same time there are still many problems here. First for the good stuff. The pacing of the film is certainly much better than what we previously saw from the director and it's really too bad that this more upbeat pacing wasn't used in earlier films because they could have been much better. The pacing certainly helps this film because the story is so lacking in many different ways. For starters, there's really not too much going on. You should be able to identify the killer before the twenty-minute mark so there's really no surprises as you work towards the end. Another problem is that we're often sitting through scenes that just drag on without any purpose and none of them really effect what's going on. The performances here are all rather mixed but I thought Bracken did a decent job in the lead and fans of DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT will be happy to see some of the patients from that film in roles here. Brownrigg once again makes some nice atmosphere but it's pretty much wasted due to the weak story.

christopher-underwood Not quite as good a low budget effort as Mr Brownrigg's earlier, 'Don't look In The Basement' but still well worth catching. This starts rather slow and predictably but soon develops into a real creepy affair with an excellent central performance from Susan Bracken as she spends the entire movie fending off the crazies. Whilst she may not be surrounded by folks quite as crazy as in the earlier film none of them are the sort you would wish to get too close to and as the film progresses a most unpleasant tone begins to permeate the picture. Bracken does plenty of wide eyed screaming, particularly as she really begins to lose it towards the end and with her red outfit and the dark shadows and is certainly a sight to be seen.

ThrownMuse A young woman reluctantly returns to her home town to oversee her dying grandmother's final days. While staying in the house where she witnessed her mumsy's murder thirteen years earlier, she finds more than a few secrets from her past have come back to haunt her. I appreciate that this movie has such strange execution. It's structure is very different from the typical low-budget horrors of this era, completely eschewing things like mystery (the killer's identity is obvious from the get-go) and resolution. Plot-wise, it borrows from proto-slashers BLACK Christmas and SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT. While it's lesser than both of those films in terms of quality, I did find it undeniably charming, entertaining, and even creepy at times. While the acting in the movie is generally amateur, Susan Bracken is a hoot as the spunky lead who gets to spout some amusing dialogue. She quickly flips the switch from headstrong heroine to full-on basket case and there's not a moment she's on screen where my eyes weren't on her face. It's one of the most memorable horror performances I've watched lately. The movie's biggest downfall is the irritating soap opera-ish theme song in the opening credits that pops up way too often throughout the movie. The freaky dolls in the opening sequence (who also pop up at other points in the movie) sort of make up for it. DON'T OPEN THE DOOR doesn't make much sense and it isn't going to be for everyone, but I found it to be a bizarre and unique viewing experience.

FieCrier The title doesn't make much sense to me. I'm not sure what door in the movie shouldn't have been opened.The movie starts uneventfully, with a conversation between a man and a woman in a room that looks like a richly furnished train car, complete with the sound of the train traveling. In fact, the man's house is a train car, and he has a cassette of train sounds. The woman leaves, and calls a young woman. The young woman tells her boyfriend, a doctor, that she's been told her grandmother is ill, and she needs to return to her home town. She hasn't been there in thirteen years.Flash back to thirteen years ago. A shadowy figure enters a house. He caresses a sleeping young girl, then goes into another room and stabs the girl's mother. The girl wakes up and enters her mother's room and finds her dead with a knife in her. She screams, and an arm comes out of nowhere and claps a hand over her mouth. She looks up in fear. That early scene in the movie of the killer muffling her scream, and the girl's look is one of the few effective shots in the movie.It doesn't have much going for it in the visuals department. Occasionally there's some strange use of sound, and there's some weird lighting in an attic scene where many of the panes of glass are red and blue.Back to the present day. The young woman arrives in her grandmother's house. An old doctor is there, who she doesn't trust, along with the man from the opening scene "Judge" and Kearn, the town's museum operator. She doesn't trust any of them, and it's true they don't inspire any trust. She's rather crabby throughout the whole movie. She wants to check her grandmother into a hospital. The men in the town want her house, and the museum operator wants the things in it (his museum is already filled with many of the grandmother's things). Inexplicably, the woman wants to keep the house.The young woman starts getting phone calls from a man speaking in a sinister whisper. He makes various threats, and wants her to do things to arouse him. Such scenes recur often. Unfortunately, there are so few characters in the movie, that the possibilities of who it could be are limited. Worse still, we see right from the beginning who is making the phone calls. So, while the young woman doesn't know (even though the caller occasionally drops into his normal voice), the audience always knows: no suspense. Each call rattles her more and more.The ending was unexpected for me, so maybe gets points for not going with the obvious, but I'm not sure I cared for it.