In The Boy Behind the Door, a gripping twist on the home-invasion thriller, first-time feature directors David Charbonier and Justin Powell plunge two tween boys into escalating peril, relentlessly intensifying a cascading series of lethal threats over the film’s excruciating runtime.
By subjecting their two young protagonists to increasingly horrifying hazards that include random abduction and violent sexual assault, the filmmakers induce a very specific type of tension that’s both alarming and profoundly unsettling.
It’s a delicate and memorably successful balancing act that effectively contextualizes some deliberately challenging material.
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