“Don’t Open the Door”: Unboxholics’ handmade but not at all amateurish thriller

The youtubers Unboxholics they make the transition to the cinema with one chill a two-person show, a horror drama in the woods between mournful reality and menacing fantasy. In a Northern Greece, out of culture and communication cabin in the woodshowever, without the familiar meta-humor and multi-faceted, expendable cast that comes with the genre, a distraught woman breaks up the repetitive routine of a lonely man, knocking breathlessly and screaming in fear on his door late at night and urgently demanding to be let in, for To be saved.

She is a biologist and had camped with three of her friends, who, however, disappeared after the attack of some unknown “creature”, as mysteriously all traces of them have been lost, as they discover together during their visit to the clearing the next morning. In gradual phases of mutual confession it is revealed that the man has lost his son and the woman has a history of abuse. And despite his persistent admonitions to leave him alone, she remains at home observing and provoking, until the inexplicable phenomena intensify and a catharsis ensues.

Handcrafted if never amateurish, the slick and compact Don’t Open the Door balances its lack of thematic originality by creating a solid atmosphere of visceral horror, displaying directorial confidence and complete control on every level.

The questions are many: since their forced coexistence under the same roof seems incompatible and smells of gunpowder, who is the aggressor and who is the victim? Do they know each other, and if so, in what dimension? In the end, are we seeing a dream develop in meteoric steps or the Nemesis that has come to set the order? (of course, the answers are up for debate and some of them are summed up in the lyrics of the excellent track “Close to you” of end titles from Kid Moxie who completed the music with a Vangelis affected score).

For no particular reason, since it is not a genre that needs an exorbitant budget and specialized technology, horror has not thrived in the Greek language – the few attempts are in English and the rest fall into the category of thriller or fantasy. THE Sakis Karpasstarring alongside Fotini Levoyanniswith Alexander Karpaalso known as Unboxholicsmanage to graft the philosophy and pace of a horror videogame with the logic of a motion picture of characters tormented by their unhealed wounds, who seek redemption in a setting of metaphysical anguish.

Along the way they subvert some expected clichés: they don’t resort to cheap and frequent scares, the details have dramatic significance as the finale escalates, and the forest isn’t the easy fix its obvious symbolism suggests but a well-designed distraction for the shelter of lost souls. , i.e. the hut of painful memories.

Additionally, they let the viewer find their own time in the film, explore and get into the mood with understated soundscape and unity of space, keeping the filmic objectivity constant in contrast to the interaction that is often intertwined with RPG video games of the respective kind and the light sources tracked rather than followed. Handcrafted if never amateurish, the slick and compact Don’t Open the Door balances a lack of thematic originality (an familiarity with all the setting and resulting situations) with the creation of a solid atmosphere of visceral horror, displaying directorial confidence and complete control over everything. flat.

The Unboxholics slowly and excruciatingly open his box dread and their first film makes sense as a composite of their influences yet so comfortingly bordering on a Lynchian psychological thriller universe, rather than churning out sharp terrors and gratuitous creeps.

Don’t open the door – trailer