The Devil's Doorway

IFC Midnight | Release Date: July 13, 2018

6.0	USER SCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Ratings

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Bertaut1Nov 1, 2018

Unexpectedly impressive

Taking its inspiration from the history of Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, specifically the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Aislinn Clarke's laudable debut feature, The Devil's Doorway, is a found-footageUnexpectedly impressive

Taking its inspiration from the history of Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, specifically the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Aislinn Clarke's laudable debut feature, The Devil's Doorway, is a found-footage horror film. It undeniably has its share of clichés, but overall it's an impressive piece of work, dealing in an interesting manner with a truly shameful part of Irish history.

Ireland, 1960. Fr. Thomas Riley (Lalor Roddy) and Fr. John Thornton (Ciaran Flynn) have been dispatched by the Vatican to a Magdalene Laundry to investigate a Marian statue bleeding from the eyes. Although Thomas is determined to find the "trickster" behind the bleeding statue, his initial focus is the manner in which the girls in the laundry are treated by the nuns. Because of this, he immediately butts heads with the rigid Mother Superior (Helena Bereen). However, with Thomas's focus on the girls, John comes to feel that something supernatural is happening; he hears and later sees bedraggled children playing in the corridors; handprints appear on his window; strange sounds emanate from the bowels of the laundry.

Between 1765 and 1996, it is estimated that upwards of 30,000 "fallen women" were confined in these laundries; sex workers, orphans, victims of rape and child abuse, the mentally ill, young girls considered too flirtatious; those who became pregnant out of wedlock. Essentially used as an unpaid slave labour force, they spent their days washing sheets, and were physically and psychologically abused by the nuns, with the Church hierarchy fully aware of what was happening behind closed doors.

One might think that nothing more horrific could be made of this subject than the facts of the case; after all, Peter Mullan's The Magdalene Sisters (2002) is a horror film in everything but name. However, Clarke and her co-writers Martin Brennan and Michael B. Jackson are far more concerned with the shifting moral positions of the two priests than with devils and demons.

In this sense, the film is about human evil - the primary story is not the investigation into the statue, it's the discovery that the institution has been discarding the bodies of dead children in an underground catacomb; so whilst the Church preached morality, warning of the esoteric dangers of contraception, the evils of homosexuality, and the iniquity of blasphemy, they condoned the torture of woman and the unsanctified burial of children. Looking at issues such as blind faith and the history of organised religions' tendency to marginalise women, Clarke exposes the Church's duplicity, laying bare their contemptible and self-serving role in Irish history, and it's this anger that lingers far longer than any of the film's genre elements.

One of the film's greatest strengths is Lalor Roddy's performance as Thomas. Playing the priest as cynical and disheartened, worn down by years of debunking claims of miracles, he is well aware of Church hypocrisy, with his layered performance the main reason the film works so well emotionally. Painfully aware that acceptance of dogma, faith in the Church, and belief in God are three very different things, Thomas finds it increasingly difficult to reconcile his love for God with the practices the Church carry out in His name.

Aesthetically, the 1.37:1 Academy Ratio, complete with rounded corners, has the effect of making Ryan Kernaghan's images look like historic photographs. The shaky and imperfect footage also gives the film a sense of an old cinema verité-style documentary, with the amount of artefacts helping to sell the first-person immediacy - lens flares and burn-outs are especially common. Granted, the Bolex camera manages to pick up far more detail in dark locations than would be possible, but this is a relatively minor gripe when the overall look is so good. This point also nicely illustrates the avoidance of a pitfall of found-footage horror films - why the hell don't they drop the camera and get out of Dodge. A problem in many such films, here, the answer is simple - in many scenes, the camera is providing the only source of light.

Of course, the film isn't perfect. As it nears its climax, it regurgitates a number of genre clichés - floating beds, upside down crucifixes, scary nuns, creepy kids, creepy dolls, skeletons, underground caverns. Falling back a little too much on the generic conventions it has managed to avoid until the last half hour or so, in this sense, it ultimately plays it disappointingly safe.

However, all things considered, this is an excellent piece of work, and an accomplished debut. Far better than the majority of found-footage movies, the acting is terrific, and it's properly creepy in places. Perhaps most importantly, however, if you can look past the hokum, you'll find a socially conscious film engaging with a painful national scandal.… Expand

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