• Directed by Patricio Valladares
• Written by: Loris Curci, Barry Keating, Milan Kopnjevic 
• Starring: Jason London, Robert Englund, Gianni Capaldi

“Your Fave Was in That?” is a reoccurring feature where I dig up and review the lesser-known films of horror favorites and legends. We’re starting with one of the biggest names on the Mt. Rushmore of modern horror: Robert Englund. 

Mr. Englund’s credits offer a wide variety of practically forgotten films from the bottom half of the rating scale. For this review I wanted to find a movie I hadn’t seen. Most of the films listed in IMDB — from the 2005 remake of 2000 Maniacs, titled 2001 Maniacs, to 2015’s Lake Placid vs Anaconda — are old lazy Saturday afternoon favorites.

Until I hit upon Nightworld: Door of Hell from 2017. This Bulgarian psychological horror film’s credits include story by Loris Curci; screenplay by Barry Keating and Milan Kopnjevic; Patricio Valladares directing, and starring Jason London, Robert Englund, and Gianni Capaldi. I would also be remiss if I did not mention the Cinematographer, Pau Mirabet, whose contributions I will get into shortly. 

Recap and spoilers ahead!

Nightworld tells the story of retired LAPD officer Brett Anderson (Jason London), who is living in Bulgaria and trying unsuccessfully to recover from the trauma of losing his wife to what seemed to be a particularly violent suicide.  His friend Alex (Atanas Srebrev) recommends him for a security job in the town of Sofia in the hopes that a change of pace will help. 

It does not

The building he is working and living in is strange, and the employees are stranger. His job is to descend to the basement of the building and check on monitors watching a very demonic-looking door carved with Enochian script and, if anything happens, call a preset number on a mysterious phone. It sounds easy and he gets free room and board, so why not? Brett’s nightmares about his diseased wife increase and start guest-starring some creepy twin girls.

Then finally at the thirty-minute mark, a blur is captured on one of monitors and Brett gets to use the mystery phone! This summons Robert Englund as Jacob Keaton, a consultant for Brett’s employers who used to do Brett’s job, before said job caused him to lose his sight

From there, things very slowly ramp up with the introduction of a cute café worker, Zara (Lorina Kamburova. She fills Brett in on murders that happened near the house as well as help him start to move on from his wife. She’s also the one who realizes that the house is slipping in time when she comes back to ask why he hasn’t returned her calls. It’s been five days for her since they last met, but for him, only one day has passed.

Jacob shows up again to herald in the third act. He delivers a tremendous info dump about the door in the basement keeping out the world of the dead, and how they have to stop it at all costs. Of course, Brett doesn’t believe it. Until Alex shows up to track down Brett, who has been missing for five days.  

The Hangar

After checking the monitors and seeing a bunch of footprints on the wrong side of the door, the group decides to go into “the hangar” (their term) and see what’s up. At this point, there is maybe ten to fifteen minutes left in the movie. Once they go through the door and start seeing zombies, it becomes obvious that Jacob was telling the truth; the door must be sealed to keep the dead from invading the world of the living. Only, Brett’s dead wife Ana is there and he’s going to try bringing her back, even as the rest of the group gets picked off by evil spirits. 

Brett, Zara, and Ana make it to the other side of the door, although Zara is badly injured in the process, and Ana reveals her true, undead nature. Brett’s trauma hits critical mass as he watches the women in his life fight over the key to the door. At the last moment, or maybe a moment too late, he shoots Ana to stop her. The dead are loose, and Zara is dying. They make it outside the house just in time for her to die, then return as a one of the undead. She almost takes out Brett, but is dispatched by the other employees of the building who have arrived to clean up the mess. Brett can only sit and stare at the spirits of his friends stuck in the house as the chaos unravels around him. 

End Spoilers!

So, that’s what happened; was it good?  Not really. It wasn’t bad either, though. As a side note, I want to take a quick moment to address a flaw I have as reviewer, because it could come up a time or two. With very few exceptions, I can find things I appreciate in just about any movie. I’m not a film apologist, I promise. I just like to like things. 

It’s easy for me to start with what I enjoyed about Nightworld. The cinematography is fantastic. Especially at the end once they go into “the hangar”.  That entire sequence is lit so sparsely, and still manages to be beautiful and frightening.  But even earlier in the movie. when it’s setting up mood and atmosphere, there are some standout sequences that remind me of older classic horror movies.   

Was Robert Englund one of the things I liked?

Of course, he’s Robert Englund. Was this my favorite non-Freddie performance from him? No, but he did a good job with a limited role. Jacob is blind and wears large sunglasses most of time, which does cut down what an actor can do with a performance. However, Mr. Englund is more than up for the task and gives what could be a basic “exposition dump character” gravitas and leaves us with a lasting impression at the end. His involvement in this movie is going to be a selling point for a lot of American audiences and was the driving force behind a lot of the press they got here at the time. The last shot of his character reminds us why he’s a horror icon.

The other actors, for the most part, are likeable enough in their roles. Lorina Kamburova is particularly appealing as the way-too-good-for-him love interest for Brett. Jason London is at his best dealing with the trauma aspects of the movie, not the supernatural. The only truly questionable acting came from an inconsistent accent on one of the building’s sketchy employees. 

What didn’t I like?

The sound mixing was off. I’m not sure if it’s the version I watched on Amazon Prime or the cut of the movie in general. I had to keep adjusting the volume. Background noises in particular seemed very loud compared to the dialogue. 

Script:

There is a bigger story behind the nightmares and ominous door. It’s one that’s only hinted at in bits and pieces that deserved much more room to be explored. I’m not looking to be spoon-fed everything, but they introduce some cool concepts and then don’t address them again. Alchemy, more gates to hell, secret organizations guarding them?  Even just a little more information about these things sprinkled through the movie would make this rewatchable. I hate putting this under “things I don’t like”; it’s more of an “I wish”. I wish the script had just had one more editing pass to bring out some of these elements sooner. 

This is a slow-burn movie and not really in a good way, narratively. There are some very cool mystery elements introduced. Instead of gradually revealing the answers, we get an info dump at the start of the third act. The information is interesting, and spreading the reveals throughout act two would ramp up the intensity and danger, while adding more horror elements to the bulk of the movie. 

Final Thoughts:

I feel like there was almost enough to like with Nightworld: Door of Hell. If you are looking for fast-paced, bloody action, you’re probably not going to get a lot out of this. It’s slow and aims for atmospheric horror, sometimes more successfully than others. The story is big and needed more space to breathe than it was given. Ultimately, I enjoyed the ending. Even if the second act dragged a bit, the resolution was so fast and impactful.

Although it leaves the viewers with additional questions. Nightworld: Door to Hell does wrap up enough of Brett’s immediate story to be satisfying. Although it is in a dark, End-of-Days kind of way. It could have used Mr. Englund more and given his character more to do, especially with such a meaty backstory. I won’t be rewatching it any time soon, and it’s not good enough to subject H³ to. I’m trying to find horror movies that he’ll actually like, after all— but you could do much worse on a rainy Monday morning. 

Nightworld: Door of Hell is streaming on Tubi