Passed the Door of Darkness (2008)

Let's be realistic.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

We have a star in the making in gorgeous Kathryn Avery Hansen who exudes sensuality as Laura in every frame in which she's featured. The story itself is basically an interesting rehash on serial killer movies wherein our cop heroes Chris Malloy (played by Matthew Prater) and Murphy MacCasey (played by co-writer Mark Colson) are hunting a shadowy unknown murderer who always manages to stay one step ahead of his pursuers and obviously has some sort of vendetta (a semi-homage to V for Vendetta in the "revelation") against the veteran detective.The movie had appropriate moodiness in the musical selections, great atmosphere and an interesting storyline which kept me interested until the very end, but the frayed loose ends left hanging by the twisted finale took a full 2 points off my rating. Are we supposed to believe Malloy was the serial killer or that his murderous father is still roaming the dark alleys looking for more victims? If it was indeed young Malloy, how did he have physical confrontations with the killer? There are many more unanswered questions but those alone really spoiled it for me. This could have been a great movie if they had only taken an extra minute or two to remove the ambiguity.

Is this thriller a masterpiece? No, definitely not. Is therefore so awful as some other reviewers proclaim? Again, I feel to say no, although I found it closer to the bottom marks than to the excellence. I would define this movie as a rather slow attempt of emulation of Se7en, unfortunately without the greatness of that glorious movie. It has a touch of original inspiration (the serial inducted-suicides are somehow well constructed, if you know what I mean...), but the dialogues are dull, the acting rarely convincing... The final is highly predictable as well as its rapid escalation unjustified in front of such a long movie - the twist, by deduction and by an incredible amount of hints spread throughout the story, could cover the only hero-protagonist left. Bottom line: you will watch it, then you will forget it. Rapidly;)

Passed the Door of Darkness starts as rookie detective Chris Malloy (Matthew Prater) fresh faced & just out of school begins his first day on the job, he is teamed up with his idol the hard nosed cynical detective Murphy MacCasey (co-writer Mark Colson) who has seen it all over the years. They are called to a terrible scene, a house where a man & his two children lay dead, then soon after another bizarre crime scene faces them when MacCasey's daughter Laura (Kathryn Avery Hansen) has the unfortunate experience of walking into her house & blowing her boyfriends head off with a shotgun that was rigged to go off as the door was opened. A killer is on the loose, a killer who sets deadly traps that innocent people set off & kill someone close to them thus turning them into killers. It's up to MacCasey & Malloy to find the killer before they strike again but there may be more to the case than they first thought as suspicion's turn closer to home...Co-written & directed by Peter Mervis under the pseudonym Traxler Mervis I got the impression that Passed the Door of Darkness was trying to be a Se7en (1995) or a The Silence of the Lambs (1991) style serial killer mystery thriller but doesn't have any of the things that made those two films absolute solid gold classics & is a rather miserable overlong little film in it's own right. First of all I have no idea why it's called Passed the Door of Darkness as there's no doors in it & there's nothing supernatural in it either. The script is poor here with the serial killer aspects all but disappearing in the second half as it focuses on the relationship between MacCasey, his daughter & Malloy which is deathly dull & when the film does kick back into serial killer thriller mode there's a ridiculous twist ending which is barely explained & makes no sense like why didn't he remember committing the murders before but suddenly does or why he then decides to almost randomly commit suicide himself or what his motives were. It smacks of a twist ending for the sake of a twist ending because that's what an audience would expect with very little thought behind it & ultimately I don't think it works or satisfies on a dramatic level. The character's are awful with some of the worst clichés I've seen in a while, I mean the fresh faced young idealistic cop right out of college who thinks he knows everything gets paired up with an embittered cynical veteran who teaches the kid the realities of life, oh please come on as if we haven't seen this a thousand times before & here it's very poorly realised with paper thin characterisation which is another reason why the twist ending just falls flat & feels stupid.There's a couple of mildly gory moments here, a man has his face blown off, there's a decapitated head, a woman has her arm chopped off with a machete & then the wound is burned closed before a bomb is placed in her mouth & her head goes bang. I have actually probably made it sound gorier than it is & the film doesn't focus on the gore or the murders that much & at times you can forget your watching a film that's supposed to be about a serial killer. There definitely nothing scary here & the entire film looks like a cheap point & shoot made for telly effort with no style whatsoever.I would have though Passed the Door of Darkness was a low budget film & the production values are cheap with a cop station that consists of two rooms & no cops other than the two detectives are ever seen there. The acting is really poor here which just makes the thing even more of a chore to sit through & means it has even less impact.Passed the Door the Darkness is a boring serial killer thriller with bad character's, a bad twist ending & it feels like it goes on forever while your watching it. The thriller elements are rubbish, the horror elements are crap & the sub soap opera style dramatics are just dull. One to avoid.

I disagree with the prior posting of bad on this movie.If you were not paying attention then you most likely would not enjoy the movie,although it would be pretty hard not to be interested at all in this movie PASSED THE DOOR OF DARKNESS,it contained one of the most well thought out mysteries of all,MURDER SUICIDES, the pain of life and LOVE and each persons way of dealing with personal demons in their life. This movie is a lesson we should all take notice of, for it has far reaching arms that touch all of us in life.And if all you do is watch a movie to judge it then you should not be watching any movie at all for they all are written by people with a message,miss the message and pay the consequence,of not knowing more to life than you know!!!