The Boy Behind the Door is the newest Shudder Original to hit the horror streaming service, and it’s a tense, emotional experience.
It introduces us to Bobby and Kevin, two boys who are “friends ’til the end.” The first few minutes of the film set up the boys’ close friendship before the story gets very dark very quickly. A scant 7 minutes in, both boys are kidnapped, and Bobby is thrown into the trunk of a car, which ends up at a large secluded house in the middle of nowhere.
After a few panicky, tearful minutes, the boy manages to kick the trunk open and takes off running. But then he stops, realizing that Kevin is in that house somewhere, alone and scared. So he goes into the house and spends the rest of the movie trying to find and save his friend.
Lonnie Chavis and Ezra Dewey (The Djinn) portray Bobby and Kevin, and I can’t imagine any other kids doing a better job. I absolutely felt their fear, and Bobby’s brave determination. I also have to give the film props for handling the traumatic aspects of the subject matter in a very sensitive way. Let’s face it, there is really only one reason kids would be abducted, right? Yet, viewers are not subjected to any scenes that show Kevin being molested.
The two boys really carry this movie, but True Blood‘s Kristin Bauer van Straten gives a strong and intense performance as well. Micah Hauptman is sufficiently creepy and menacing as the kidnapper, credited as “The Creep.”
The Boy Behind the Door was written by David Charbonier and Justin Powell, who also wrote and directed The Djinn; another extremely good (and scary) film. That’s already impressive, but even more so since both of these film are Charbonier’s and Powell’s first outings.
I had the chance to chat with these two very talented guys, and the interview starts in the next paragraph. But, first, I just want to encourage my readers to watch The Djinn and The Boy Behind the Door. They will give you a double wallop of both creepy tension and emotion.
The Boy Behind the Door: Friends ’til the end
1428 Elm: I am really excited to talk to you guys, because I absolutely loved The Djinn and The Boy Behind the Door.
Justin: Oh, thank you.
David: Thank you so much!
1428 Elm: Tell me about how the two of you met, and how you ended up collaborating on both of these projects – which you wrote and directed, correct?
Justin: Yes, we did. We basically have known each other our whole lives, so the story of how we met is just, we literally met in kindergarten. But, in terms of getting these movies made and going, it just came out of us really wanting to pursue film our whole lives, and we’ve always had a strong love for horror and thrillers, it’s kind of what we bonded over. It was a little bit of a journey to get here, but we’re really happy that we have these two movies under our belt now.
1428 Elm: So, you’re films are among my favorite type of horror or thriller, they are what I refer to as emotional horror. You have these nice character relationships, and as a viewer, you really care about the characters, it’s so much more effective to me than just putting some guy out there in a mask and a knife, slashing people up.
David: Thank you for that.
1428 Elm: No, I really love that kind of film. Do you think your friendship kind of helped you write that type of movie? Especially with the friendship between the two boys in The Boy Behind the Door?
David: Yeah, I would definitely say so. When we came up with The Boy Behind the Door, we really did want to explore the theme of friendship, the lengths you would go to save your best friend. But also, you know, what a story would look like with these two sort of underdog characters that are up against this seemingly impossible situation.
But, to respond to what you said earlier, those are the horror movies that Justin and I also respond to, the ones that do have strong emotional cores and characters you really care about, because if you don’t have that, you’re not gonna be scared when these characters are in danger, or in jeopardy. You have to have that bond or be able to relate to them on some human level. So it’s amazing to hear that you responded to that and picked up on that for both of us, because that’s our thing, an intention we want to sort of keep doing.
1428 Elm: The Boy Behind the Door was your first film together, right? Even though The Djinn was the first to release?
Justin: Well, it’s an interesting story, because basically, we had written The Boy Behind the Door over the course of a couple years, really dating back to 2015-2016, and we got it picked up before anything happened with The Djinn. In 2018, we were supposed to be a go with The Boy Behind the Door, and it got pushed for a variety of reasons.
We had decided that 2018 was going to be the year we made our first movie, so we had to kind of scramble to get all the resources that we had at our disposal at the time. We came up with The Djinn really quickly, putting the whole thing together, like from writing it to shooting it was like a month or something, it was insane.
We actually shot The Djinn first, so we had already cast, Ezra in The Boy Behind the Door, and that’s how we knew that he was so talented. We already had a cut of The Djinn when The Boy Behind the Door was green lit to go again, so we put that on hold and finished The Boy Behind the Door in its entirety from actually shooting it to finishing a variety of cuts and locking it in, and then we went back to The Djinn. So, technically we shot The Djinn first, but it’s a weird situation.
1428 Elm: Ezra Dewey is amazing in The Djinn! He impressed me so much, and I was a little disappointed in the beginning of The Boy Behind the Door at first. I was like, “oh, he’s not going to be the main kid!” But, Lonnie Chavis was so good too, how did you find these kids?
David: I mean, we really lucked out with such an amazing cast, especially the kids. We really can’t take any of the credit for it though, we had an amazing casting director, Amy Lippens, she’s so incredible and talented, she’s like the best cheerleader, and she’s so good at being collaborative. She really understood our vision, what we wanted these characters to embody. I have to say, that was one of the easiest parts. We knew we really needed strong, talented actors for these characters, since they had to carry the whole movie, so that was kind of a relief.
And yeah, Ezra and Lonnie are just super-talented, and they really are the movie.
1428 Elm: Sometimes kid actors tend to overact, but everything these two did was completely believable. I interviewed Matthew James, who wrote the score for The Djinn, and we talked about the challenges of shooting pretty much the entire film in a confined space. It was much the same for The Boy Behind the Door. What were the challenges with that?
Justin: You know, we really love shooting in confined spaces. We think it really ups the tension in horror movies, when you kind of keep things claustrophobic. But, I think the biggest challenges with it came from the specific location we found itself. We just had a lot of logistical hurdles that we had to deal with, but once we got past those, we were able to really lean into what I think are our strengths: telling a visual story in a confined space. Just navigating the endless restrictions of that specific location was definitely one of the biggest challenges regarding that.
The bigger challenge was regarding the kids’ hours and the limited time that we could use them, that was the bigger issue.
1428 Elm: The Djinn actually had a limited run in theaters, so that had to be really exciting after COVID. Did you go watch it in a theater so you could see the audience reaction?
David: We did get to see The Djinn in theaters, and that was such an incredible experience for us. The restrictions were still pretty heavy at that time, they still had, I think barely half the capacity they were allowing people in the theaters, so that was a little unfortunate. If it was like two weeks later, it would have been a lot more open. It was still nonetheless a really cool experience, we kind of wish we had that experience for The Boy Behind the Door. But, we are still really happy that Shudder was excited about the movie.
1428 Elm: Yeah, I think Shudder is amazing, and they have a big fan following, so I think that’s going to work out well for you. Considering these are your first two movies, you guys did really well for yourselves. Tell me what you have coming up in the future now.
Justin: We don’t have anything technically slated yet. We really want to get a couple projects off the ground that we’re really excited about, there are two that we’ve kind of been working toward that will hopefully get going soon, so keep your fingers crossed for us.
1428 Elm: I sure will, I’ll keep my eyes open for them. Thank you so much for your time, I really enjoyed talking to you, and I look forward to hearing more from you in the future.
Have you seen The Djinn and/or The Boy Behind the Door? What did you think of Justin and David’s films? Tell us about it in the comments section.