THE PALE DOOR – Review

THE PALE DOOR will be in theaters and on Demand and Digital August 21, 2020

Review by Stephen Tronicek

When you try to attack a genre piece, especially a Western, on a low-budget the story and characters have to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Sure the costumes might look stagey and the frame a little too clean for the period, but at least there’s a good theme to hold onto. The Pale Door, directed by Aaron B. Koontz (Camera Obscura), unfortunately doesn’t quite get there. While it has a few good performances and spirit to spare, it doesn’t have the story to rise above it’s lower budget trappings. 

    The Pale Door could be best described as a horror/Western. It’s a film about a group of outlaws, including brothers Jake (Devin Druid, Louder Than Bombs) and Duncan (Zachary Knighton, The Hitcher), who fail to rob a train and end up in the clutches of a mysterious whorehouse. As the night unfolds, the truth of the place becomes sinister putting the brothers in harm’s way. 

    The most interesting element here is the relationship between the brothers. Their camaraderie makes up the backbone of the story, and while it treads familiar ground, Druid and Knighton create a believable rapport. Also quite good are veteran players like Melora Walters (Magnolia) and Bill Sage (Mysterious Skin), who both have a great time realizing what type of movie they are in. A movie like this lives and dies on personality and both have that to spare as the Madam of house and a hothead gang member respectively. 

    Where the film trips over is when it starts to embrace some of the more problematic aspects of the Western genre. Sure the “temptresses” are using their sexuality to lure most of the gang in, but there isn’t much of an attempt to make them more than just that. The Women have been wronged and want revenge, but eventually, by the movie’s standards, they are all just evil creatures who deserve to be shot. Similarly to the surface level examination of feminist tropes, the film handles its tropes on race. It presents an outward friendship between the brothers and their companion, Lester (Stan Shaw), but never bothers to dig deeper. Not every movie needs to be a perfect treatise on these issues, but if you’re going to make your movie about these issues, it’s best to explore them in a meaningful way. In the end, it’s the same old conservative values wrapped in a message of acceptance and “preserving your innocence.” 

    While all of these aspects are flawed, the makeup/special effects work is quite entertaining. The Women in their final forms have a really nasty and fun character design. Same goes for the squibs. While there are probably numerous computer generated blood effects, the practical ones harken back nicely to splatterhouse charms. 

    The Pale Door is a fine attempt at some grindhouse fun, but it is too steeped in sickening thematic material to be enjoyable. While a few performances and gore-effects shine, the film doesn’t have the entertainment value to be worth checking out. 

2 out of 5 Stars