Right At Your Door

Who is right at your door when all terrorist hell breaks loose in Los Angeles, and you’re inside the walls your home? Would you feel safe? Who would be allowed to share that supposed safe haven with you, and who would not?

When dirty bombs hit the City of Angels during morning rush hour, many are left stranded but some are still in the relative safety of their houses, behind their locked doors. Others are stuck on the freeway, trapped in their offices, or simply caught outside with nowhere to turn. Married couple Brad and Lexi find themselves on opposite sides of the door when the unthinkable occurs.

Lexi has had her coffee and driven off to work, while unemployed Brad is home brushing his teeth when the report comes on the news: a virulent dirty bomb has been dropped in downtown L.A. He rushes to the window and sees a dark mushroom cloud, nearly blackening the sky. His neighbors are screaming and running. The TV newscasters can barely contain themselves. It’s sheer chaos. Brad immediately phones his wife’s cell, but is unable to reach her. Stricken, he jumps into his vehicle and speeds off, looking for her. He’s quickly subdued when he witnesses the death of a terrified civilian much like himself, shot and killed by the police for simply trying to leave the area.

The city is under severe quarantine and Brad has no choice but to return home and hope that Lexi will make it back somehow. But he fears the worst. He does not imagine she could have survived the blast, or the fatal fallout. Opening his front door and going inside, he finds himself with the neighbor’s handyman, Alvaro, who helps him seal off all possible entryways to the contamination. News reports are sketchy, but the bomb’s killers are airborne and while it seems like a Band-Aid on a gaping hatchet wound, the two men border every window and door frame with every manner of tape they can muster. Anything to keep any more filth-ridden air from getting inside.

Then Lexi comes home. She’s covered in soot and coughing uncontrollably, begging Brad to open the door. Their tearstained faces say it all, as he makes a life-altering decision. No. Having nowhere else to go, Lexi crumples on the doorstep pleading, crying, cajoling and threatening. Now the human drama – and horror – unfolds.

While Right At Your Door is terrifying, occasionally gory, and truly white-knuckle gripping, it’s not being billed as a horror film. It’s really not one, but just think: Sophie’s Choice meets Night of the Living Dead. Relatable, scary and thought-provoking, Right At Your Door is certainly one of the better films I have seen this year.

And certainly one of the more depressing films I have seen, ever. Of course, one cannot expect this subject matter to handled in a light manner, but Right At Your Door is crushingly heavy and resolutely downbeat from beginning to end.

Although truthfully it was too dismal for my taste, I have to say that brutally brisk and unrelenting direction from first-timer Chris Gorak, an unwavering story and a script backed up by achingly realistic portrayals by the actors, all make Right At Your Door just right.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson