A woman attempts to find a secret time travel portal in order to make a documentary in the sci-fi drama in the feature film Through The Door.

It’s always great to see up-and-coming filmmakers make use of what little they have in terms of budget and equipment and create pieces that are highly imaginative with great concepts. The likes of Primer, Cube, and of course the hugely successful Saw are great examples of this. Now, Matt Kincses looks to follow suit with Through The Door.
The film begins with Zoey (Alea O’Shea) regretting another one-night stand and confiding with her friend over breakfast. The friend, Camila (Maria Jose Pacreu Rodriguez) informs Zoey that she applied to go back in time recently but was denied, again. Zoey, obviously unbelieving, mocks her friend, but Camila insists that time travel is a reality but only for a select few. In order to humour her friend, Zoey then applies via an interview (with a phone on a chair) and is gobsmacked to find out that her application is successful.
Zoey is then given a day, time, and location in order to pass through a time travel portal. She arrives at a disused warehouse that has many (many!) rooms. Some of the space is well-lit, whilst others are bathed in total darkness. After entering another door, she soon finds herself amongst a labyrinth of abandoned offices. Here she meets a couple, Logan (Nathan Plumite) and his British girlfriend Jane (Lola Claire) who are also looking for the portal. The trio decide to try and search together, only they run into yet another person in search of the portal in Carson (Steve Thackray) who admits that he has been wandering the corridors of the building for maybe five days straight.

During their search, Zooey comes across a dead body and a cloaked figure standing over it. Carson explains to the others that the mysterious figure is known as the Time Wielder and it is looking to stop the others from accessing the portal. Not only that though, Carson is aware of the dead body, as it was another man looking for the portal that he met whilst there, with them even having a discussion over the World Cup. You see, Carson was under the belief that France had recently won the cup, whilst the other guy believed the most recent winner to be Brazil. It is then explained that everyone there is from a different year…Carson from 1998, Logan and Jane from 2002, and Zoey from 2026. Each has their own reason to go back in time and as they search for the elusive portal, friendships are made and broken when tensions come to ahead.
Through The Door has many fantastic ideas and some great drama. We are fully aware that, due to the lack of money, Matt Kincses couldn’t go all out with the sci-fi effects, but he does create an interesting concept and some great drama with the characters who become fully fleshed out as more information about who they are, what they have done, and what they want is drip fed through the seventy minute run time. The addition of the Time Wielder we felt wasn’t really necessary, and the design of it is like a cross between Kylo Ren (at the start of The Force Awakens) and a character out of Eyes Wide Shut, but that is just maybe one misstep in what was an enjoyable experience.

Through The Door just goes to show, you don’t need a big budget to create something interesting. You just need some capable actors, some equipment, and a cool idea. Well done.
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