The Devil's Doorway

Unexpectedly impressive

I couldn't get my mind around how the sisters could leave that home in 1961, close the gates when it closed down, with 796 children buried beneath in the tunnels in coffins, a lot of them in the sewage tank area as we now know. What kind of mentality would leave that place without acknowledging that so many burials were there, so many precious lives were lost? The ideal would be to exhume those little bodies and just show them some dignity and reverence and to perhaps re-inter them in the main Tuam graveyard which is only across the road.

• Catherine Corless; Receiving the Bar of Ireland's Human Rights Award, October 2017

Taking its inspiration from the history of Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, specifically the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Aislinn Clarke's laudable debut feature, The Devil's Doorway, is a found-footage horror film. It undeniably has its share of clichés, but overall it's an impressive piece of work, dealing in an interesting manner with a truly shameful part of Irish history.

Ireland, 1960. Father Thomas Riley (a brilliant Lalor Roddy) and Father John Thornton (Ciaran Flynn) have been dispatched by the Vatican to a (non-specific) Magdalene Laundry to investigate a possible miracle. Sometime previously, the bishop received an anonymous letter from someone in the laundry claiming that one of the statues of Mary is bleeding from the eyes. True to their biblical namesakes, "Doubting Thomas" (as John calls him) is a sceptic, the Vatican's go-to guy when they want to debunk something (by his own admission, he has never seen a true miracle). World-weary and disillusioned, he is the polar opposite of the young and enthusiastic John. Straight from the seminary, John believes blindly in the institution of the Catholic Church, much to Thomas's disdain. Determined to catalogue everything they do, the first 20 minutes of the film mainly involve John getting in people's way and being told to turn off t...

<I>Evil is in all of us.</I>

This movie is decent in the way of story and pacing. However, the found footage techniques and cliches used in horror movies before this are definitely noticeable.

This won't wow horror and found footage fans, but it will give you some entertaining moments with Reverend Mother (aka Mother Superior) conversations with Father Thomas.

This film could've packed more spooks into it overall. But i'm sure the budget didn't make it happen.