The Entrance's garish blood red cover art - with a vampiric creature sporting razor-sharp teeth - might lead one to expect, well, a bloody and violent horror flick. This is one of those cases, though, where the book can't be judged by its cover: this film is much more thoughtful and much less bloody than its art might have you believe. Indeed, the movie was surprisingly better than I anticipated.

At the start of The Entrance, Detective Porhowski, a middle-aged, unmarried police officer, is given the task of interrogating Ryan, a drug dealer who has a disturbing story to tell. Ryan claims to have been abducted in the middle of the night and taken to a parking garage, which serves as a portal to some other realm where he and other men are forced to play games of chance for their lives. Losers of each game are forced to watch - along with the others - video of their greatest sins before being killed by a supernatural entity. Ryan then abducts Porhowski and takes her to this parking garage, where she must face the horrors herself. Revealing more at this point would be akin to entering major spoiler territory, so I'll end this synopsis here.

As you might have guessed from the description above, The Entrance is yet another in a long, long line of low budget thrillers that take their cue from the success of the Saw franchise and other entries in the "torture porn" genre (yes, I hate that term too, but it seems to have stuck in the popular vernacular).

Fortunately, it's much better than most of the Saw knockoffs floating around the DVD aisles.

I gave writer / director Damon Vignale a lot of credit here. First, in the special features of the film, Vignale and others involved in the production of The Entrance comment upon how the script was only 60 pages long. Bravo to Vignale for keeping the movie lean and to the point. This flick proves the old adage that sometimes less is more.

The Entrance's storyline is indeed compelling, and its twists and turns are interesting. At 81 minutes, the film never drags, and at the same time, Vignale does not let the film descend into an exercise in excessive gore and violence. It's not that I'm against gore and violence in horror, of course, but it was nice to see one of these films opt for a more thoughtful Twilight Zone-ish approach to the material.

I also appreciated a group of characters more mature than is standard for horror films. Sarah-Jane Redmond does a particularly nice job acting as the lead: a career police woman facing middle-age alone. This character reminded me of the Laura Linney heroine in the thoroughly enjoyable horror romp The Exorcism of Emily Rose. It's fun from time to time to see a horror film favor a heroine over the age of 25, especially when that heroine is smart and reflective, as is the case in both films.

The Entrance isn't perfect, but its supernatural take on the Saw premise makes for entertaining viewing. It may be low budget and low on the gore quotient, but if you're into suspenseful horror films, I'd definitely suggest you check out this film.

The DVD

Video:

The DVD cover art states that The Entrance is presented in a "16x9 Widescreen 1.78:1 DVD screen format." And you get exactly what's advertised: an anamorphic widescreen image. The image is rich in detail, even in darker scenes (aside from brief flashback scenes deliberately presented in grainy black and white). Skin tones look natural. Color plays an important role in this film to set up the mood - with blue predominantly favored in most scenes a la The Ring.

Sound:

The sole audio track is Dolby Digital 5.1. This is one of those horror films that rely on sudden loud sound effects for some of its scares. These effects, at times, are much, much louder than the dialogue, and I found myself turning down the volume for a few of these scenes then turning it back up when the film returned to dialogue. It was annoying, but otherwise, the audio track seemed to be well-mixed.

Subtitles are provided in English and Spanish.

Extras:

When the disc is played, trailers automatically precede the main menu for The Eye, The Chair, Sight, TKO, Seance, Knock Knock, and The 2nd Annual After Dark Horrorfest. An ad for Fearnet.com is also included. These trailers are made available collectively under an Also from Lionsgate link in the "Special Features" menu. A separate link in the same submenu accesses a trailer for The Entrance.

This DVD also has The Making of The Entrance, a fairly typical featurette with comments from the cast and crew mixed in with behind the scenes footage. At just over 16 minutes, it's not bad, but a commentary track would have been nicer, especially if Vignale were given an opportunity to expound further upon his vision for the film.

Final Thoughts:

The Entrance is one of the better low budget Saw clones I've seen. I give the filmmakers credit for two things: first, plot twists and character development are favored over gratuitous violence and gore, and second, the cast of characters are more mature than the norm in fright flicks. I'd definitely recommend this movie for the horror crowd.

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