Hard to figure out if this is really a horror.

First up - the acting, sound, shooting, and editing are brilliant. On that basis it's an award winner.

The story starts with selling one's soul to the devil, and this passes through four characters, all female. She just gets $500 and when she speaks her name at a crossroad he comes for her and she ends up committing suicide.

So most of the story seems like a metaphor - the illusions of lonely women in a declining society. There's no significant male character - just the shadow of the beast.

I thought this was going to go Mulholland Drive, with the artist sister having invented the story to justify her evil deeds. But it ended straight.

Overall really impressed, especially with the expectation of something new in each scene. But it needed an extra level. Horror has to horrify, and a great story has to be meta - very hard to combine them.

I rated The Pact, which was a genuine horror but with much lower standards. So I reckon McCarthy will blow my mind next time round.

One more thing: I got confused distinguishing the female characters in this movie and in The Pact - is it just me?

When you expect a kind of "The Exorcist" variant with a person possessed by a demon, ranting and raving while being chained to a bed, vomiting green slime, reciting incoherent fragments of text in a foreign language that he/she doesn't master and spinning his/her head around in a supernatural way, then you're wasting your time with "At the Devil's door", because this is not that type of film. But if you are a lover of the more subtle horror genre with a nasty undertone and a sinister, menacing atmosphere created by the use of shadows, moving objects and a constant palpable threat, then this is a must see.

Of course there will be grumbling about the lack of depth of the characters and of real scares. Firstly, I think a horror isn't always successful by using irritating artificial frights (as in "The Quite Ones" where they used deafening sound effects) or by excessive use of gore elements. To me a horror is brilliant when, even if these elements are applied to the minimum, and it still has a nasty and devilish atmosphere. And you don't need profundity to create that. I suggest you watch a Shakespearean drama when you're into that. You also don't expect scary moments while watching a romcom.

It all starts with a teenage girl called Hannah (Ashley Rickards) who makes the mistake to accept the invitation of her boyfriend to play an innocent game and as a reward gets 500 $ for doing that. In a ramshackle caravan somewhere in the middle of a desert, an eccentric, horrid guy plays a cup game with her and comes to the conclusion that she is "chosen" and she should go to a particular intersection and speak out her name so that "he" will know her when the time is right to call her ... Years later we meet the real estate agent Leigh (Catalina Sandino Moreno) who's going to sell an abandoned house which later appears to have been the parental home of Hannah. Together with her sister Vera (Naya Rivera),she is sucked into a demonic game where evil is trying to nest in human society.

"At the devil's door" basically covers the same theme as told in Goethe's work "Faust" : the closing of a pact with the devil and giving your soul in exchange. In this case it's not really voluntary, but it's kind of the same idea. The scene in Hannah's bedroom suggests that it will turn out to be a typical horror about possession and that an accumulation of clichés will be the result. Nothing could be further from the truth. The story very slowly unravels a sinister plot while using the principle of "less is more". This paranormal horror, in which a mix of "The Exorcist" and "Rosemary's Baby" is interwoven with a little family drama, makes sure you haven't got a clue where it's leading too. In addition, there are some surprising twists in the story which sufficiently compensates the lack of some decent frights. There are some extremely strong fragments in it. Like Hannah's bedroom scene, the "Little Red Riding Hood" type of girl who turns a babysitters night into a hysterical experience for the concerned parents, Leigh's confrontation with evil and the ultrasound ("The Possession" flashed through my head for a second). Simple and unspectacular portrayed. Subtle and exciting at the same time.

The two main players Catalina Sandino Moreno and Naya Rivera are two outstanding actresses and beautiful at the same time. For once they aren't like most girls in a horror film, run around screeching and being slaughtered by some demonic power. They are intelligent go-getters who defend themselves. They both have a very different role in this film and divide the whole into two additional episodes. And the little girl Ava Acres who played "the girl" at the end, had such a minimal role but played it in such terrifying way. Most will call the end weak and disappointing. Personally I thought it fitted the entire movie and made it pretty open-ended so a sequel isn't unthinkable. All praise to Nicholas McCarthy who tried to create some new enthusiasm in the horror genre.

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Saw 'Home', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued by the idea which was reasonably different when it comes to recent viewings of horror. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing it.

Giving 'Home' a fair chance with being interest and apprehension, it turned out to be far better than expected. Won't say that 'Home' is a great film because it isn't and the potential, while not wasted, is not fully lived up to. Considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre and less and wasting potential, was expecting worse and was relieved that while wanting in a fair few areas it was actually one of my better recent low-budget viewings.

Starting with the positives, generally the production values could have been much worse. There is a real sense of eeriness, foreboding and a decently stylish atmosphere, and it makes the most of the confined and at times effectively claustrophobic setting. The music is also suitably haunting and manages to not be too intrusive, likewise with the sound not being too obvious (a bugbear of mine with low-budget viewings recently).

There is tension, suspense and genuine creepiness. The acting is better than average, with the three leads carrying the film pretty decently.

Would have liked however more tension and suspense and for some of the scares to be more creative and less trying-too-hard to the point of cheesiness. The dialogue is cheesy and awkward generally.

Found that the story could have been executed better too. Too many parts are uneventful, the narrative structure is not always coherent and it can feel padded, not to mention an ending that perplexes in its anti-climactic and muddled convolution. There are exceptions to the better than expected production values, the effects are shoddy and the editing could have been tighter.

Overall, better than expected but didn't blow me away. 5/10 Bethany Cox