creepy

At the Devil's Door is a well-photographed genre film with several frightening moments, but it is undermined overall by a flawed storyline and an absence of originality. It employs a rather unconventional structure, with a trio of female characters functioning as the protagonist. First is a rebellious teenage girl who trades her soul for $500 on a desolate stretch of road in the California desert. Second is a real-estate agent (played by Catalina Sandino Moreno, who deserves richer material eleven years after Maria Full of Grace) hired to sell the suburban home where the aforementioned teenager previously lived. And third is the realtor's troubled sister, a painter. The baton goes from one to the other, and the ambiguous demonic antagonist is always waiting in the shadows, ready to pounce. Many of the images and concepts here—bodies contorting in midair, for example, or a blasphemous pregnancy—are far from revelatory, at least for those who have watched such iconic films as The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby, but there are undeniable jolts and moments of genuine unease, with characters creeping here and there while our eyes search behind them for a sign of danger. The decision to hop from character to character and unfold parts of the story in non-chronological order is an ambitious gambit, but also problematic: it honestly renders the film busier, but not more enigmatic in any significant way. Another notable problem is a godawful final scene which sits ill at ease with what came before and lands with a punishing, resounding thud.

C