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FoCC Short Film Review: The Blue Door – You’ve Entered Another Dimension

by Jason Delgado

I was recently given the opportunity to screen a new short horror film called The Blue Door, starring Gemma Whelan, aka Yara Greyjoy from Game of Thrones (Check out FoCC Blog’s articles from Migagne for awesome, in-depth GoT reviews!).

The Blue Door is about a nurse, played by Whelan, who takes on an assisted living job for an elderly patient. Strange things are afoot in the patient’s run-down home, which is all I can really say without spoiling the fun of the story.

At just under nine minutes long, director Paul Taylor’s BAFTA nominated sci-fi thriller, The Blue Door, achieves what many feature length films can only hope to do. It’s suspenseful and entertaining, doing so without either of the two characters in the movie saying a word. Gemma Whelan does an excellent job of conveying all of her emotions through her facial expressions and body language. The look of the film and the set are pitch perfect for the horror style, and Paul Taylor’s shots and slow panning camera add to the spine-tingling aura of it all.

This is how the new Twilight Zone should have been (I admittedly haven’t seen all of the episodes yet, so I’m holding out hope that they get better). Can we get Paul Taylor, along with writers Ben Clark and Megan Pugh, a job on the Twilight Zone? How about having Gemma Whelan star in an episode? They all worked together to up the ante in terms of suspense and eeriness, which I found lacking in the first few episodes of the new Twilight Zone.

Bravo to everyone involved in the making of The Blue Door. Short film is a different beast from the feature film world because of the time constraints, not to mention a much smaller budget. This movie had a slow build in such a short time, yet it wasn’t slow-paced by any means. That’s a difficult feat to accomplish. The Blue Door is a fun, bite-sized treat with a distinct style, I don’t know what more you could ask for out of a short.

I give the film five out of five hot sauce packets! You wanted something terrifyingly spicy; you got it!

The Blue Door will be released in full on Thursday, May 30th on the ALTER YouTube and Facebook pages.