Right at Your Door is a deliciously exploitive piece of cinema that attempts to play on people’s fears concerning terrorist attacks, and it does so quit effectively. The film is basically a “what if” scenario that asks viewers to imagine what it would be like if a terrorist attack occurred in your city… then it takes the scenario a step further and infuses a little dirty bomb action. A husband and a wife find themselves in just this type of scenario. The loser husband stays at home and waits as long as possible for his wife to return from work, but, eventually, he can wait no longer and he germ proofs the house with duct tape, bubble wrap, and even a shower curtain… sounds like another Saturday night to me. By the time he is completely finished, his wife has showed up covered in dirty ash and coughing like a pothead in the morning. They must spend the next few days separated by plastic and wondering what to do as the radio tells them to stay put and wait for help even as events begin to spiral out of their control.

The film is directed by first-time director Chris Gorak. Gorak has some moments of brilliance and some moments of extreme cliché. Fortunately, the moments of brilliance far outweigh the times when Gorak’s film turns into another mishmash of relationship clichés. Scenes of the husband trying frantically to reach his wife through police blockades and quarantine checks are extremely frenetic and fast-paced and mange to capture some of the hysteria that would dominate in a situation like this. The end of the movie is also extremely well-filmed with some creative choices in imagery and angles. It’s the middle of the film, which suffers from poor writing and clichéd situations, that really brings the pace of the film down and causes a 96 minute film to feel like two hours. I don’t think the clichéd middle would have been such a distraction if the character development had been a little stronger. As it is, the husband and wife feel very disconnected and it’s hard to drum up any conflict in the viewer when they don’t buy the relationship between the two characters. If they don’t care about their own relationship, the viewer certainly isn’t going to care.

The acting in the film is pretty good. Rory Cochrane and Mary McCormack hand in some pretty wonderful performances, even if their characters are a little two-dimensional and bland. The rest of the cast is fairly bad, including some of the “supposed” radio announcers and soldiers that populate the film. As an independent feature, I’m not too keen on ripping the film for having a weak supporting cast, but if this was a big budget movie, I would definitely be a little put off… like when you bend a girl over for some doggy style lovin’ and you see a little turtle head poking out of her butt.

Right at Your Door is a quality flick full of “what if” goodness. I only wish it had been a little more thought out, as the middle of the film is full of situations that might have occurred in a real life situation, but they don’t necessarily make for compelling cinema. The ending of the film was fantastic, even though I could have done without the lame resolution.

Final Synopsis: Right at Your Door is a pretty good film that suffers from first-time director flaws. It’s not going to set the world on fire, but the film is worth seeing in the theaters. It reminds me of Open Water, only with a larger set and some more people around… which is a good thing, because the couple is just as unlikable as the couple in open water.

Points Lost: -1 for not making the relationship between the husband and wife as compelling as possible, since that is the crux of the film, -1 for a boring middle of the film, which fails due to the uncompelling relationship of the couple, -1 for some weak editing between scenes, some smoother, more professional transitions would have been nice

Lesson Learned: If your mother in-law calls during a disaster… just hang up the phone.

Burning Question: Are there any situations where a cure can be found for a sickness, but not for a carrier of that same sickness? When I say carrier, I mean someone who technically has a sickness but doesn’t exhibit symptoms.

Right at Your Door
7/10