[Film Review] The Boy Behind The Door (2020)

The Boy Behind the Door is about two boys, not one: true close friends, or as they put it “friends to the end”. Casually heading for a baseball game after school, these two twelve-year-olds are suddenly abducted and driven far from home.

Kevin (Ezra Dewey) is held captive while Bobby (Lonnie Chavis) – considered to be worth less – is left in the kidnapper’s car. The story is all about Bobby’s efforts to rescue his friend, both of them resourceful and determined, but real facing peril and the realisation that “stranger danger” is not a myth.

The Boy Behind the Door is also about the unknown, anonymous boy; any boy who has been taken for sale or misuse by adults. I’ve seen trafficking, abuse of women, and many other real crimes on screen before, but this is the first time that I can recall seeing young boys as victims of crime in a film. This is no Law and Order: SVU that sensationalises (or even describes) what such victims might face, though. Bobby encounters some photos which give him just enough of an idea to raise tears, and the kidnapper idly talks about customers; but that’s as far as the grit goes. To be honest, I half expected a helpline phone number, or at least some statistics, as the screen went black.

This is an escape thriller, not a dramatized pamphlet. That said, it definitely fits in the horror genre too, especially if the scenario is considered from the kids’ own point of view. I made the mistake of inviting my son to watch the film with me, thinking he would enjoy rooting for heroic characters his own age. But this is no Goonies or even The People Under the Stairs: The Boy Behind the Door was much too realistic for my normally gore-fan son to watch for more than fifteen minutes.

This realism comes from several factors. Firstly, the adolescent cast are remarkable; especially Chavis, who carries so much of the film on his own. Everything he thinks and feels can be seen right on his face, so that even when he occasionally overstretches himself (or conversely is tempted to give up) it is all easy to believe. The pains, strains and fears they go through are “child level” realistic: it might be too far-fetched if we saw the boys carrying on regardless after being stabbed, for example (which adult victims often do in films). One of them has to put on a brave face when half a fingernail comes off instead, and one is virtually defeated by a (rather minor) gunshot wound. These young boys cannot face everything, nor inflict everything, as in Battle Royale. Equally, there are limitations to what they can practically do, too, simply because they are children of this time.

The baddies in this film (I can’t tell you their actual roles, as it will give things away), played by Kristin Bauer van Straten and Micah Hauptman, are somewhat exaggerated in comparison. But again, this feels plausible if you consider everything is presented from the boys’ perspective: the Bogeyman is real and larger than life. If their characters are drawn a little simplistically, that fits with how the young victims might recount the tale.

David Charbonier and Justin Powell have written and directed their first feature film in The Boy Behind the Door and have done a remarkable job: it all works. Anton Sanko’s music is atmospheric and serious, while Julián Estrada’s cinematography emphasises the maze-like nature of the house they are kept in and copes beautifully with dark hallways and facial close-ups alike.

I’m not going to tell you I loved it though. Despite everything I’ve written already, The Boy Behind the Door is (almost perfectly) formulaic. Countless horror-thrillers have been made with these standard elements: cat-and-mouse hunt, psychopathic captor, escaping victim(s), and yes, even hopeless law enforcement. Charbonier and Powell may have changed the captives from attractive young women (the usual stereotype) to adolescent boys, but apart from that, they have constructed a plot out of familiar elements. They wrote and made the film very well, and it maintained strong tension throughout; but this quality didn’t compensate for a nagging feeling throughout that I had seen it all before.

Premieres 29 July **A Shudder Original Film

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