31 Days of Halloween: The Devil's Doorway

2018, Aislinn Clarke (Childer) -- download

Catholicism. Exorcism. Found Footage. Evil deeds being done behind locked doors. All of these have become solid tropes in the horror movie biz. Tired? Overused? Yes, of course they are. But that is where the idea of trope comes from -- a reusable / familiar idea that can draw the unwary in. If done well, you can feel you are experiencing a new idea, a skilled presentation of something that attracts you.

Clarke obviously went with this idea. She took a horrific moment of Irish history, the Magdalene Laundries where "fallen women" were sent to be hidden in these convents, where they worked primarily in laundries to pay for their own incarceration. Clarke, who gets the place of being Ireland's first woman to direct a horror movie, used this background to explore the evil that people can do on others. And she builds her horror movie around familiar ideas embedded in other horrors.

The problem is that while using this real life circumstance as a backdrop, she actually deflates the historical significance of the events by attaching Satanism and Witchcraft to the evils wrought, instead of it being a true & classic human evil. That takes away much, and it is very strange, for the movie begins with even the almost faithless Father Thomas with a distrust and suspicion of the Sisters behind the convent.

In the end its just a jump scare filled run of the mill horror movie with some good themes that are wasted behind forgettable superstition.