For a zero-budget indie film, "Behind Locked Doors" isn't half bad. The basic plot--about two city women who are abducted from a swinger's party in the country to become unwilling sex slaves-is actually pretty good.
The film's first 14 minutes get things rolling pretty fast: A group of 20-somethings dance and mingle in an abandoned barn deep in the middle of nowhere. One by one, the couples pare off and get it on in various haylofts. This sexy opening reaches its crescendo when the hottest guy at the party takes an interest in permanent virgin, Ann. Sequestered in a loft, he puts the moves on her but she resists hard enough to make Doris Day proud. This leads to a not-bad rape scene, which is interrupted when the film's weakest link, a bird-watching Henry Kissinger clone, arrives and whacks the poor stud with a pitchfork.
Having established himself as a good guy, the Kissinger clone leaves and then orders his hunky handyman (who gives off a major porn star vibe), to drain the gas from Ann's car, so she'll be forced to walk to his house and ask for help. This Ann does, along with her lesbian friend, which leads us to the film's dullest segment: a 20-minute sequence where we get to know the Kissinger clone (who is a mortician) and his improbable sister, while Ann and her pal get comfy in their room. Finally, the plot kicks in again, as the girls realize why the Kissinger clone tricked them into staying the night. Things pick up from there, with a couple of tame rape scenes and some genuinely creepy scenes in the spooky, cadaver-filled dungeon.
It's a shame the producer made some decisions which detract from the film's impact: casting a portly old Kissinger clone as a serial rapist, adding the wildly unlikely character of his sister helping (and even watching him) performing the rapes and a clumsily handled climactic scene in the dungeon. With just a few changes, this could have been a major underground classic. Imagine if instead of a bird-watching old mortician, you had a ruggedly handsome ex-con. If the little old lady sister character had been replaced by a two more cons who had escaped with the lead con and killed the inhabitants of the house, taking it for their own. If all three cons were having their ways with the captive women, before offing them. Much stronger, scarier and sexier!
It is what it is though, and it's not all bad. I enjoyed this film and others who like '60s ephemera, grindhouse films, underground indie works, etc. Will probably "dig it" as well.
