Sorry to trouble you at this time, but I brought you something exciting today! Imagine a salesperson that’s so committed they would stop at nothing to make their sale. Imagine trying to make it through the day while your partner works long hours, stuck at home with your kid, waiting for the stress to be lifted off so you can enjoy dinner, enjoy what’s on tv, even enjoy being able to feel the embrace of your lover. Neither of these aren’t very far-fetched ideas; we’ve seen salespeople go door to door in snowstorms, we’ve tried to hold onto those quiet moments while the kids are at school, or even ten feet away in the bathroom. Everyday things that can cloud our minds, these are what really make the base of a strong horror movie. DOOR, the 1988 J-Giallo gem, really asks very little from your imagination. Instead, it sets everything up for you, and has moments so real it borders into something more like a fucked-up home movie than a piece of fiction.
With her husband working increasingly long hours at the office and their grade school age son off at school, Yasuko (Keiko Takahashi) spends her days alone. She fills her time by running errands and preparing meals for her family. Throughout the day however, she must fend off a barrage of both phone and house calls from a variety of determined salesmen. A few hours into her busy day, when one interaction ends with Yasuko inadvertently crushing pushy salesman Yamakawa’s (Daijiro Tsusumi) hand in her door, his vengeful wrath escalates to unspeakable levels. The salesman leaves, and decides to come back the next day for his revenge.
Yamakawa, much like many other salesmen, knows way too much about his possible customers. Now, he starts calling Yasuko constantly, breathing heavily, leaving obscenity-laced messages and even leaving tissues stained with his bodily fluids in her mailbox. He nearly gets into her bedroom before her son comes home from school. Yamakawa is innocent now, joining mother and son for a friendly dinner, an invader smiling at the table.
I love home invasion movies because those are my biggest fears. I grew up with an overprotective mother trying to make sure our very nice suburban neighborhood was behind locked doors, and the addition of COVID brain rotting me left me having a hard time leaving my house as a 270-pound, 6’4″ man. This movie stands above so many others because it does more than show someone in peril—it follows them. There is a scene where you see the cat and mouse game from the perspective of the cat, the mouse, and a bird’s eye view. This framework adds a breathtaking cramped feel that is so rare for these types of movies. You know that there are toys and tools strung around the apartment, but the layout is so bizarre that you cannot remember just where they were.
The apartment complex itself is so cramped, and there is very little about it that comes off as appealing. You watch these people go about their days, ignoring each other, ignoring physical boundaries, and ultimately ignoring safety. Yasuko can scream as loud as she wants, Yamakawa can break all of the furniture in the apartment, the neighbors are not interested in intervening because it hides behind a closed door and is ultimately not their problem. What IS their problem is someone who doesn’t read the trash pickup rules, or someone who doesn’t keep their apartment exterior clean. DOOR understands the ’50s revival that sprinkled through the ’80s and it shows how a modern world cannot truly embrace this unlocked door with a white picket fence concept. The milkman could be so much more—he could be an assailant. The housewife is not safe during your 8 hour workday, Don. This, again, shows how terrifying the real world is for a home invasion movie.
Directed by Banmei Takahashi and starring his wife, Keiko Takahashi, as the undeserving housewife, this movie flew under the radar for years and existed for Western audiences almost exclusively in the form of subtitle-less bootlegs. Gôji Tsuno works in this beautiful jazz-centric citypop soundtrack that borders between romantic and longing, watching Yasuko yearn for a life where maybe she gets laid more or gets to enjoy a night of not having to make dinner. But the other end of that longing is centered around the world Yamakawa is trying to bring into this tiny apartment. It’s nothing pleasant and it almost makes you feel bad for enjoying the mood earlier in the movie. Takahashi’s directing credits show a lot of pinku titles prior to this, and I think it really helps capture the sexuality of the movie.
In 2023, Fantastic Fest premiered it for the first time ever in America, and Terror Vision picked up the Blu-Ray release while Screambox carried the streaming rights. The Blu-Ray is expected to ship this month, and I cannot recommend it enough for you physical media fans. And, if DOOR leaves you wanting more, the second film in the trilogy, DOOR 2: TOKYO DIARY got a blu-ray release together with the first from Third Window Films.
Tags: Ataru Oikawa, Banmei Takahashi, Blu-ray, Fantastic Fest, Giallo, Gôji Tsuno, Horror, japan, Keiko Takahashi, Mystery, Screambox, Terror Vision Records & Video, Yasushi Sasakibara
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