Nightworld: Door of Hell

I found "Nightworld" by sheer luck, and seeing that Robert Englund was in it and it being a horror movie, of course this was something I had to watch.

Normally, I am not a fan of the London brothers, but I will say that Brandon London actually did handle himself quite well in the movie and carried it quite well. Robert Englund, well he is Robert Englund after all, but this was hardly a memorable performance from him and not one of his better movies.

The storyline in "Nightworld", while it definitely did sound enticing on the synopsis on the back of the movie, then it did not come to fruition on the screen. The whole movie was unfathomably slow paced and nothing much of any interest - I kid you not - happened throughout the entire course of the movie. Once the movie can to an end my first thought was 'was that actually it?'

There is nothing scary about the movie, and there are no build ups to anything grand. And once it becomes revealed what is actually going on, you are so far past caring that it hardly mattered.

The movie had potential, for sure, but it wasn't utilized and the movie was unfathomably montone and mundane. To the point where it was becoming a struggle to keep being interested in watching the movie. I managed to endure this ordeal to the very end, and I can in all honesty say that I am never returning to watch this a second time around.

Oh, and you might want to bring a pillow along when you travel to "Nightworld", just a friendly heads up...

The film is a Euro-horror filled with heavy, stylized atmosphere both Gothic and ghosty. It plays of tempered elements of Italian horror masters like Fulci with weak results.

The story is a classic ghost story with the notable presence of mid-20th century megalomania in that the big bad has an apocalyptic agenda against humanity. The film is saturated with spooky atmospheric moments built on Eurocentric melodrama. Think Eastern European soap operas. London gives a credible performance in the lead which almost makes you wonder why his career did a 180 all those years ago. Englund sadly gives a mediocre performance that shows either an issue with script or money. My guess is script material which almost seems to phone it in.

The special effects are limited and subpar at best, driven by eerie, creepy music and Gothic spectacle that doesn't quite get you there. Practical and CGI FX work barely meets basic cable paranormal shtick found on almost all networks. Shadows, ghosty sounds and low budget horror are the soup-du-jour. Most fall flat and by no means give fright.

Overall "Nightworld" doesn't really do much for the paranormal genre other than provide a nice slice visual beauty that can be found in Eastern Europe. London'so performance, as good as it was, isn't enough to entertain and the scare-adjacent theatrics are "too little to late". Englund adds a little value to fans looking to have all his projects adorn media shelves, but "Nightworld" only warrants the standard once-over.

I agree with a number of other reviews of this film: it started off really well. The acting was good, the premise strong, and the direction was deliberate and moody. However, where it should have kicked into high gear, it actually sort of fell apart. The last act could have stood at least one more good pass at the script, and the low budget really didn't help there either.

Overall I would say that you should know that the ending won't be as satisfying as you might like, and armed with that information you might enjoy it more. Unfortunately the movie must be thought of as a lost opportunity.

A retired LA cop gets a job on security at an old Bulgarian apartment block, which turns out to be built on one of the seven gateways to the other side. So many movies are filmed in Bulgaria but set in the USA these days, it's nice to see a film actually set in Bulgaria. As my headline says this is a slow burn but the story held my interest. That is until the final 20 minutes or so where it all became rather predictable and disappointing. The obvious similarity to me was Lucio Fulci's The Beyond, a FAR superior movie. The character played by Gianni Capaldi could not decide if he was Scottish or a Londoner judging by his varying accents. Good to see Robert Englund though - he's been in some real turkeys since his Elm St days but this is not one of them. Overall this is a reasonably creepy but forgettable movie. Could have been better. Could have been worse.

#StokerScore Too much time on my hands and a dearth of movies to watch meant I wasted ninety minutes on this complete load of codswallop.

The movies only redeeming features come from some interesting artwork that led me to believe this was going to be a Cthulhu-esque horror story that in reality turned out to be such a low-budget joke that I regret the time I gave over to it.

The acting was terrible with the singular exception of Robert Englund who was only mostly terrible and apart from a few exploding squibs there were no other special effects.

The shame is that there was potential in the story and considering that most Lovecraft horror is imagined I think they could still have gone that way and kept the budget low.

Who is this movie aimed at? Why and how did it get made? Your guess is as good as mine. Totally forgettable