The Boy Behind The Door

Bobby (Lonnie Chavis) and Kevin (Ezra Dewey) are in big trouble. A chat filled stroll to baseball practice has gone terribly wrong and now both have been kidnapped by horrible people with unimaginable things on their minds. Bobby awakens in the boot of a car with Kevin already gone. He has an opportunity to run but friendship is holding him in place. After kicking his way out he finds himself in the garage of a dark and dingy house and on searching the place finds his friend locked into room, sobbing and terrified. The adults of the house have left but before they can return one young boy must figure out a way to save his friend and himself.

Kidnapped children. Two words that would make you sick to your stomach. It's an emotive subject and many people won't appreciate a horror thriller based on the subject but thankfully the story stays away from the nastier what if's of the situation and stays firmly in the POV of the boys while wrangling it's scares from their many thwarted attempts to escape.Yup, thwarted because it's no spoiler to tell you the kidnappers return but a couple of twists and turns leave the story on an unpredictable path that will have you chewing the fist off yourself as you watch because man alive does it get stressful.

See if you can guess what horror film is being homaged here......

The best horror films have always had some matter of subtext or have been a metaphor for the political climate in which they were made. The Boy Behind The Door's underlying theme is as blunt as it gets. Bobby, an African American boy and Kevin, Asian American, taken by scum driving a car with a make America great again sticker on it to a house surrounded by oil pumps, one of the business that white america made its first big money on. Asian, African, taken to be exploited once again but this time they're fighting back and it's satisfying to watch the screams, snaps and death rattles of those who deserve it. Horror has long been accused of, and in a lot of cases been guilty of tokenism, especially in regards to black characters but Bobby has real agency here and it's satisfying to see him go for it.

But that doesn't mean he has an easy ride. The film puts him and Kevin through the wringer with regard to bodily injury and a couple of scenes will have you reaching for the fast forward button. A splash of gore and a touch of crunch have always been one of the crowdpleasing aspects of horror movies but when the people hurting are kids those aspects hit differently. One of the guilty pleasures in this genre is secretly rooting for the bad guys, be they Freddy, Jason, Dracula, Michael, Pinhead so on and so forth, but here in this real life context you'll be screaming for our heroes, wanting them to make it out alive and live up the to dreams they aspire to early in the film. Those early moments give us a sense of their characters, their strengths and because they're kids you'll empathise with them instantly meaning when they're threatened you'll want to see justice meted out. If you can stick with The Boy Behind The Door you might just get to see it too.

This is a solid debut from the writer/director duo of Justin Powell and David Charbonier. Combine their work with a couple of very effective turns from Chavis and Dewey and you get a fine horror film that thankfully stays on the right side of tasteful.

The Boy Behind The Door is streaming now on Shudder.