Right at your Door - review

Right at Your Door (15)
Dir. Chris Gorak

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

Right at Your Door is a white knuckle, panic inducing terror ride of the highest order, now available on DVD so you can freak yourself out whenever you want… It’s a claustrophobic study of the truly terrifying spectre that haunts all of us in this post 9/11 world… A ‘what the hell would you do’ situation analysis of an ever present threat – unflinchingly unmasked and dissected brutally on film.
Yes, we’ve all asked ourselves the question but no-one knows for sure just how will you react when Jehovah’s Witnesses come ‘Right at Your Door’? Did I say Jehovah’s Witnesses – sorry I meant dirty chemical bombs and their life sapping poisonous fall out… My bad.

This is strong stuff, and I hope I’m right in saying that nobody likes to think too much about terrorist attacks on urban population centres – but writer-director Chris Gorak (who has some impressive cinematic form as art director for Fight Club etc) brings this stark reality buzzing straight from the screen with a tightly wound suspenseful vibe.
Right at Your Door a couple of love birds named Brad (Rory ‘A Scanner Darkly’ Cochrane) and Lexi (Mary ‘West Wing’ McCormack), they co-habit and seem to be doing OK. That lasts for at least a couple of minutes before Lexi is lost in the blast zone when several bombs go off in the Los Angeles rush hour. The film works best in the following panic when all we know – from fragmented radio report and sketchy wide angle shots is that there’s some bad sh*t happening and nobody knows how or why, they don’t even really get round to speculating who might have launched the attack.

What would you do if the partner you loved was caught out in the contamination and you’d managed to safely seal off your house… And they turned up asking for help?? It’s that potentially relationship wrecking scenario that wrings the emotion from the screen.

That’s pretty much all you need to know – if someone offers to tell you in detail the plot, punch them and run away as it’s better if you experience the horror unfolding alongside the main characters… For a few moments I felt even disorientated and anxious while viewing this, which was possibly more to do with the dodgy lunch I’d eaten but it certainly added to the overall effect!

Darkmatters rating system (out of 5):

Action ööö – cleverly filmed so that less is somehow more
Laughs öö – this isn’t a comedy
Horror ööö – gets a bit grim but nothing too nasty
Babes ö – covered in toxic ash isn’t a good look

Overall ööö (a freak out bad trip that you should really consider taking)

Darkmatters: H O M E