What a freaking trip. I mean, seriously, there are some good drugs going around the indie horror scene right now and I feel a little left out. Chad Ferrin’s Someone’s Knocking at the Door is a case example of that. Playing like a micro-budget, but meaner, version of Jacob’s Ladder, the film is exactly what you’d expect from a Vicious Circle release… except weirder.
In a nutshell, a group of medical school students do a lot of drugs. Always looking for their next high, they stumble upon the pharmacological therapy and study of a married pair of convicted killers, John and Wilma Hopper (the always creepy Ezra Buzzington and Elina Madison) that would, literally, screw people to death. Somehow tapping into the energy of these long dead murderers, the medical students begin to drop like flies. Violated flies, but flies nonetheless. The carnage is intense and, like any good creep-fest, things are most definitely not what they seem.
The performances, especially from Buzzington and Hopper, are all solid as is the camera work and direction. If I had a bone to pick, it would be with the writing. From the credits, three writers worked on the script (and I don’t know if that was together or separately) and the storyline suffers for it. I understand the idea of the piece was to have a disjointed, semi-linear presentation, but the writing is so uneven at points, not even a good cast can help too much. On the other hand, if you used a cast like most of the movies we review over here at Cinema Head Cheese, the resulting film would feel more like a neighborhood theater presentation of Rocky Horror so I guess I should feel lucky.
Someone’s Knocking at the Door is available on DVD and BluRay from Vicious Circle Films. If you want to check it out, use the handy dandy Amazon.com link to the left there and give a little something back to the Cheese.
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