"Door" (2023) [Brooklyn Horror Film Festival]

by Mike Imboden

Normally here at “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict”, both Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. However, here and there they will be taking the reins in a solo outing. For this installment, it’s Mike with a solo review of Banmei Takahashi’s Door, a film that, until now, had been unreleased outside of Japan.

Synopsis

After several strangely threatening calls from a local salesman, a homemaker becomes increasingly afraid to answer her apartment door.

The Good

If Banmei Takahashi’s Door does one thing right, it’s capturing that annoyed feeling we all have when we’re interrupted by a cold sales call. Thankfully in today’s world this isn’t as much of an issue as it once was and while I can’t say for certain if it’s the same, I’m assuming Japan doesn’t have this problem anymore. Thankfully for us, though, it WAS a problem so that Takahashi could be inspired to give us this methodically paced thriller in which Yasuko Honda (Keiko Takahashi, the director’s wife), slams a salesman’s hand in her door which kicks off a couple of days worth of mental torture as the salesman, Yamakawa (played by Daijirô Tsutsumi), takes things very personally.

The first act establishes the normal life Yasuko enjoys with her husband Saturo and young son Takuto (played respectively by Shirô Shimomoto and Takuto Yonezu). Everyday things like walking Takuto to school, preparing dinner, chatting on the phone with a friend, and dealing with - of course - salespeople. It’s this focus on the mundane that serves to show us how much Yamakawa’s fixation on her impacts Yasuko’s life as things ramp up before taking off like a rocket sled on rails for the third act.

The cinematography is great - some of the exterior shots of the characters on tall staircases or of the neon glow of a phone booth in the night time rain help set the tone of certain characters. Takahashi also makes the most out of the rather small setting of an apartment, creating moments where you’ll find yourself holding your breath as the front door’s handle slowly turns back and forth, or a clever and quite fun to watch scene that unspools in a single take from directly above the set, tracking the movements of the characters from room to room.

The Bad

There were two things about Door that stood out to me that I need to include in this section. First and foremost was the music that seemed ridiculously out of place. For a movie that relies on the slow growing sense of dread and tension of anticipating that something is going to happen, the choice of music can make or break the immersion into the story. When it first played during the opening credits and initial scenes of the Honda family it seemed like an appropriate choice of casual sounding music - but later, as events played out, it didn’t come close to fitting in with what was on the screen.

I was also left a bit perplexed by Yasuko’s skittishness about strangers, her front door, and even the phone. It seems totally normal to be cautious about these things, but there are times when she seems almost petrified that her apartment doorbell is buzzing - and this is before the sketchy sales guy ever makes an appearance. What makes this so odd was that she seems to have no problem going out in public. If she was afraid of THAT we would at least have some related clues to draw our own satisfying conclusions from.

The one aspect of the film that really had me scratching my head isn’t really an issue with the film itself, but the fact that the restroom door in the Honda’s apartment says “toilet” on it. Is this a thing in Japan? Do all residential buildings indicate the bathroom in such a way and if so, is this because people were confusing them with closets or something?

The Verdict

Strange music choices and something that could be chalked up to an actor’s performance aside, Door is an exceptional film that does a great job of building suspense and ratcheting up the tension of a mounting expectation that something is going to go BOOM at any minute. This is all enhanced with some nice camera work that includes an impressive one-take scene shot directly from above.

Almost as brutal as the third act is the commentary Takahashi leaves us with insofar as salespeople and, I am going to theorize, the corporate intrusion into our lives. The fact that things haven’t changed all that much since 1988 makes this a rather timeless film and is worth a watch, especially for fans of tense home invasion thrillers, and HomerZone baseball bats.

Door, from Banmei Takahashi’ and distributed by Arrow Video played as part of The Brooklyn Horror Film Fest which ran from October 12 - 19. Check out more information here https://brooklynhorrorfest.com/.

Door also receives a Blu-ray release from Third Window Films as part of its Director’s Company Collection on October 30, 2023.

Door