Roger Corman's New Concorde produced this reasonable little straight-to-video low-budget demon feature that wears its b-grade quality proudly. Usually these films know what their target is and keeps to its strength, and "The Doorway" does that. Honestly the thing that caught my eye in the first place other than Corman's name; was the name of a establish actor Roy Scheider. He might not make an appearance to about 30 minutes in, but when he does it's dependably good even if it's nothing more than merely a small, but important role to the scheme of things.
Four college students looking to make some money, head out to an old abandon Georgian mansion to make some renovation repairs. However after just settling in weird things begin to happen, and one of them finds a book explaining the original occupants curiously demented past involving devil worshiping cults involving orgies and death. Soon they realise they're not alone as there's a demonic force at work.
You want blood
you got it. Cheap jumps
that's a tick. Nudity
yes plenty to go around. Sex
of course with depraved passions let out. And how about creepy dolls
oh yes it's a win-win situation. Well that's what happens when the mansion you're working in has a carnal past and a doorway to hell in its cellar, expect you soul to be corrupted by the evil. One sequence involving the group dancing away to a song while they clean
was just the start of it and nobody had been possessed yet. How to combat it in a logically sense is to get in a professor of the superstitious field and maybe a descendant (a smoking Teresa DePriest) with a physic link, who luckily enough knows the professor and is there on the spot. What are the odds? What they came up against is a ghostly succubus and hideous looking demon. For its obvious budget restrictions the make-up FX and visual effects are decently executed by Robert Hall / Almost Human. Sometimes cheesy, but not terrible. Low rent sets standout, but it's well photographed with it catering a claustrophobic remoteness to its house-bound terror.
You could probably nit-pick the creaky narrative and find a whole lot of flaws, but what's the point. It did take on some different fabricated plot roots, but the ending was unfulfilled in the way they closed it off. One aspect that I could have done without the cheeky humour that filled the fashionable script. The performances are passable enough and Lauren Woodland is likable.
If you let it, there's fun to be had.
