Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		1.5

The Boy Behind the Door Blu-ray Movie Review

Adults do the darnedest things.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III March 29, 2022

Another lukewarm and borderline insulting entry in horror's "kidnapped!" sub-genre, David Charbonier and Justin Powell's The Boy Behind the Door doubles down on don't go in there moments where the hapless victims bumble their way through a barrage of bad decisions. The difference here is these abductees, Kevin O'Connor (Ezra Dewey) and Bobby Green (Lonnie Chavis), are pre-teens so their bad decisions are okay, I guess. But you know what's not okay? Trying to mask amateur storytelling with your protagonists' age to stretch a short movie's plot into an excruciatingly drawn-out 88 minute feature film. The child actors are pretty solid, but even they can't save this one.

There are signs of trouble early on when The Boy Behind the Door opens in media res before flashing back six hours earlier when the two kids, presumably on their way to a Little League game in rural Anytown U.S.A., are thrown in the trunk of a car and driven to a remote location. It's a pointless explanation for something that didn't need explaining... but it doesn't matter, because things are back to the present time by the ten-minute mark. From there, it goes into full cat-and-mouse mode when Bobby easily escapes from a shed and runs for help, only to turn back after hearing Kevin's cries for help from an upstairs room in the adjacent farmhouse. Said house's only other occupant loves to constantly drink beer and watch TV (and even has a prominent "Make America Great Again" bumper sticker on his car) because of course he does but, before you know it, he's spoilered by accident. With no way to free Kevin from his upstairs prison, Bobby tries calling the police but is soon interrupted when the real threat pulls up outside.

The Boy Behind the Door milks that second threat for all it's worth, employing all of those uniformly dumb decisions -- some of which are made by adults, including a police officer investigating Bobby's initial phone call -- to keep this train running on fumes. I'll admit that portions of the film's purely suspense-driven plot work well enough from a base-level perspective, both in organic tension and added stylistic touches like the occasional use of Bobby's beating heart rate that amplifies during key moments. But the maddeningly excessive use of these dumb decisions is an absolute insult to thinking viewers, which also ends up severely undercutting our sympathy for two child actors that do an admirable job with poorly-written material... respectively, both Lonnie Chavis and Ezra Dewey also previously stood out in The Water Man and The Djinn (both better films), so no surprise there. The Boy Behind the Door does have a few other strengths, including a decent original score by composer Anton Sanko and a welcome switch of leadership during its final stretch, but it shoots itself in the foot way too often to make this more than a mostly eye-rolling affair. That's not even factoring in several blatant "homages" -- I'm riding the quotation marks pretty hard here -- to horror classics like The Shining, which it steals at least three iconic camera shots (and one kill) from with store-brand results.

All things considered, it's a middling affair that does nothing to truly advance the genre and, aside from those stray highlights, feels like a total by-the-numbers effort barely worth watching once. I'm also wondering who in the world this film is being made for: kids the age of its protagonists will be scarred for life, young adults will probably be annoyed at the boys' helplessness, and as for parents....? Well, who among us wants to be reminded that kids might get snatched while they're outside having fun? Regardless, The Boy Behind the Door is now available from RLJ Entertainment, although perhaps quite fittingly this Blu-ray is surprisingly unimpressive in most key areas.

The Boy Behind the Door Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

During its strongest visual moments, The Boy Behind the Door leaves a very good impression on RLJ Entertainment's Blu-ray with crisp overhead drone footage and wide shots early on, as well as a few boldly-lit exterior sequences that boast tight image quality and good color saturation. Unfortunately, medium-grays and deep blacks are another story: this single-layered disc (which should be enough real estate for just over 90 minutes of total disc content) struggles to keep up during several lengthy stretches in the expansive farmhouse's shadowy interiors, rending fine detail and crisp edges into more of a mushy, noisy mess that even shows modest signs of ghosting piled atop expected levels of black crush and posterization. (Screenshot #5 [below] and this one are particularly bad.) While these scenes don't dominate the film's 88-minute runtime, they're pretty distracting but are still outweighed by better-looking moments. Whether or not these issues are baked in to the source material is unknown and this Blu-ray probably still outpaces any streaming version by a decent margin, but overall it feels like there's at least some room for improvement here.

The Boy Behind the Door Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

No such problems with the DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix, which does a fine job with its limited source material and environments to create an effective soundstage with mostly crisp dialogue, well-placed effects and discrete activity, the previously mentioned "heartbeat" effect, and of course the original score. It doesn't break any new sonic territory for the genre, but it's a fine effort for this low-budget affair and easily stands as the film's most memorable asset.

Optional English (SDH) and Spanish subtitles are offered during the main feature only.

The Boy Behind the Door Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a standard keepcase with dark cover art, a matching slipcover, and minimal extras.

• "The Boy Behind the Door" Music Video (2:09) - I was expecting a really terrible indie song, but this "music video" is actually more of an instrumental trailer with moody soundtrack cues by Anton Sanko, who's composed for a few Blumhouse films. Bonus: it isn't too spoiler-heavy if you happen to watch it first.

• Bloopers (2:37) - A few brief moments of levity -- nothing special, but still appreciated.

The Boy Behind the Door Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

David Charbonier and Justin Powell's The Boy Behind the Door pits two against two with a severe handicap but, despite a few mild strengths including both young leads and respectable tension levels, it quickly exhausts viewer patience with an endless -- and I mean endless -- barrage of dumb decisions and other cheap "story extensions" from the majority of its limited cast. Needless to say I didn't find much to enjoy here, but those more receptive of its charms (including our own Brian Orndorf, sort of) will still be mildly disappointed by RLJ Entertainment's Blu-ray, which comes up short in the video department and contains very few extras. The very definition of "try before you buy" at the most.