The Boy Behind the Door (2020)

December 5, 2021 9:13 AM

After Bobby and his best friend Kevin are kidnapped and taken to a strange house in the middle of nowhere, Bobby manages to escape. But then he hears Kevin's screams for help and realizes he can't leave his friend behind.

Bobby is played by Lonnie Chavis, who plays the tween flashback version of Randall on This Is Us. Kristin Bauer van Straten, best known as Pam the vampire on True Blood, also stars.

97% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Currently streaming in the US on Shudder.

posted by DirtyOldTown (2 comments total)

This is a very tense, well-done little thriller. It absolutely acknowledges all of the bad shit you worry the kidnapper and her "customers" were going to do to a kid, but thankfully, in a kind of sideways fashion. Minimal blood and only thriller-level gore. No depictions of sexual violence. But it's so tense!

Little horrors everywhere. The kidnapper leaving the black kid to suffocate, because the perverts they sell to only want the doe-eyed white boy. Bobby crying "I'm sorry!" as he stabs the creep, defending himself, but traumatized. The grim realization of what the timer on the creep's wristwatch is for... The fingernail! The Polaroids... The instances where simple life skills (using a rotary phone, cleaning a kitchen floor, driving a stick shift) could save their lives but Bobby, being twelve, just doesn't have them.

Bit of a plot hole though, as the emergency operators tell Bobby, calling from a landline that they need time to track his location. Caller ID is about 35 years old for landlines now. Anyone who has ever been billed for a long distance phone call where they hung after one ring knows this.

I did appreciate the apt awfulness of the creep's Make America Great Again sticker. That was a dark laugh that let off some tension.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:09 AM on December 5, 2021

There were a couple places where I felt like the characters made obviously-wrong choices but in this case I can forgive it because they were kids. On the whole I thought this was a solid, engaging thriller.
posted by johnofjack at 9:58 AM on August 16