Some things I liked some I did not.

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Is this thriller a masterpiece? No, definitely not. Is therefore so awful as some other reviewers proclaim? Again, I feel to say no, although I found it closer to the bottom marks than to the excellence. I would define this movie as a rather slow attempt of emulation of Se7en, unfortunately without the greatness of that glorious movie. It has a touch of original inspiration (the serial inducted-suicides are somehow well constructed, if you know what I mean...), but the dialogues are dull, the acting rarely convincing... The final is highly predictable as well as its rapid escalation unjustified in front of such a long movie - the twist, by deduction and by an incredible amount of hints spread throughout the story, could cover the only hero-protagonist left. Bottom line: you will watch it, then you will forget it. Rapidly;)

Passed the Door of Darkness starts as rookie detective Chris Malloy (Matthew Prater) fresh faced & just out of school begins his first day on the job, he is teamed up with his idol the hard nosed cynical detective Murphy MacCasey (co-writer Mark Colson) who has seen it all over the years. They are called to a terrible scene, a house where a man & his two children lay dead, then soon after another bizarre crime scene faces them when MacCasey's daughter Laura (Kathryn Avery Hansen) has the unfortunate experience of walking into her house & blowing her boyfriends head off with a shotgun that was rigged to go off as the door was opened. A killer is on the loose, a killer who sets deadly traps that innocent people set off & kill someone close to them thus turning them into killers. It's up to MacCasey & Malloy to find the killer before they strike again but there may be more to the case than they first thought as suspicion's turn closer to home...Co-written & directed by Peter Mervis under the pseudonym Traxler Mervis I got the impression that Passed the Door of Darkness was trying to be a Se7en (1995) or a The Silence of the Lambs (1991) style serial killer mystery thriller but doesn't have any of the things that made those two films absolute solid gold classics & is a rather miserable overlong little film in it's own right. First of all I have no idea why it's called Passed the Door of Darkness as there's no doors in it & there's nothing supernatural in it either. The script is poor here with the serial killer aspects all but disappearing in the second half as it focuses on the relationship between MacCasey, his daughter & Malloy which is deathly dull & when the film does kick back into serial killer thriller mode there's a ridiculous twist ending which is barely explained & makes no sense like why didn't he remember committing the murders before but suddenly does or why he then decides to almost randomly commit suicide himself or what his motives were. It smacks of a twist ending for the sake of a twist ending because that's what an audience would expect with very little thought behind it & ultimately I don't think it works or satisfies on a dramatic level. The character's are awful with some of the worst clichés I've seen in a while, I mean the fresh faced young idealistic cop right out of college who thinks he knows everything gets paired up with an embittered cynical veteran who teaches the kid the realities of life, oh please come on as if we haven't seen this a thousand times before & here it's very poorly realised with paper thin characterisation which is another reason why the twist ending just falls flat & feels stupid.There's a couple of mildly gory moments here, a man has his face blown off, there's a decapitated head, a woman has her arm chopped off with a machete & then the wound is burned closed before a bomb is placed in her mouth & her head goes bang. I have actually probably made it sound gorier than it is & the film doesn't focus on the gore or the murders that much & at times you can forget your watching a film that's supposed to be about a serial killer. There definitely nothing scary here & the entire film looks like a cheap point & shoot made for telly effort with no style whatsoever.I would have though Passed the Door of Darkness was a low budget film & the production values are cheap with a cop station that consists of two rooms & no cops other than the two detectives are ever seen there. The acting is really poor here which just makes the thing even more of a chore to sit through & means it has even less impact.Passed the Door the Darkness is a boring serial killer thriller with bad character's, a bad twist ending & it feels like it goes on forever while your watching it. The thriller elements are rubbish, the horror elements are crap & the sub soap opera style dramatics are just dull. One to avoid.

The premise of this movie sounded pretty good. In fact, I'm going to quote the TV guide information:"Brutal serial 'chiller'. A crazed psychopath leads detectives on a trail of blood-curdling death as he turns normally stable citizens into killers in the most gruesome fashions imaginable." Now what does that sound like? Does it sound like this murderer has the ability to turn people crazy, homicidal even? Well that's what I expected, but no. This is one in a long line of movies trying to cash in on the success of Saw with a killer who has a message to deliver to his victims, except this killer's MO is to put people in "traps" that will kill them when their family members open the door, suspecting nothing wrong.Maybe that doesn't sound so bad. I mean with so many people trying to cash in on Saw the laws of averages suggest some have to have some talent.Too bad the killer doesn't have too much to do with this movie. All I can say without spoiling things is that the older detective has some unrelated issues, and that's what the second half of the movie ends up focusing on.

This movie is, hands down, one of the worst I've seen in a long time. The script is nothing but terrible, clichéd lines, the acting is atrocious, and many of the stylistic touches are annoying (especially certain scenes where the characters' lines are echoed, as if the director didn't trust us to remember the important ones). I feel bad for the people who worked on this film, because they probably thought it would turn out really moody and suspenseful. Instead, I found myself laughing at the lame "twist ending" and nearly dozing off at certain points. What a waste of time. I almost never comment on this site, but this movie was just so bad that I had to come here and warn others about it.