Evil at the Door opens with an expository video in which John Doe (Bruce Davison) gives some overview about what will be occurring over the course of this particular evening. A shadowy organization known as the Locusts will be causing some kind of mayhem this very night, in what we quickly learn is a yearly tradition. We cut to who will be the eventual targets of this mayhem.

Liz (Andrea Sweeney Blanco) is seeking solace at her sister and her husband’s home from an abusive boyfriend. Jessica (Sunny Doench) welcomes her sister into her home with open arms, but Jessica’s husband Daniel (Matt O’Neill) is a different story. It’s clear that Liz has burned them in the past, and he isn’t eager for it to happen again. This quickly becomes background noise, as the Locust members descend on the house to accomplish their yearly goal of murdering randomly assigned people. 

Where Evil at the Door stumbles and stumbles very badly, is that almost nothing happens for the entire run time. The basic premise holds the promise of the three main family characters fighting for their survival in inventive and surprising ways. Instead, Daniel is tied up to a pool table almost immediately and occasionally tortured. Jessica sits in a bathtub listening to music and drinking wine while the Locusts wait outside the door, and Liz lies underneath the bed alternating between quiet gasps and waiting for her cell phone to get reception. That’s all the characters do.

The members of the Locusts stand around and wait for Jessica to leave the bathroom, and chat about their past accomplishments. There is no conflict, no exciting moments filled with tension as the supposed protagonists try to fight back against the situation they find themselves in. It’s just a lot of standing around and waiting. All of this could have been improved upon by having the characters do literally anything except what they do. 

All of this drives towards an ending that was trying for shock value and ended up just feeling nihilistic and needlessly bleak. It’s difficult to see a trio of characters you never really cared about in the first place meet violent conclusions and do anything but shrug your shoulders. Even if the Locusts had been a little more menacing or entertaining, it would have made it interesting to watch. Instead, they are cookie-cutter villains we’ve seen in these types of movies many times. 

The actors do their very best with what they are given in this situation. Again, a large part of their performances involve hiding under a bed, relaxing in a bathtub, or standing around talking to each other. There isn’t much they could do to save this story and make it anymore watchable. The problems are very much embedded in the writing. 

There isn’t much to recommend in Evil at the Door. It had an opportunity to tell a compelling story about a character fighting to get her life back on track (Liz) while uniting a family in trauma. Instead, it’s boring and derivative, and not much else. 

1 Out of 10