Sometimes the biggest terrors are found in a house of God

The Devil's Doorway (2018)

Dir- Aislinn Clarke

One of the worst real-life horrors were the Irish Magdalene Laundries that held "fallen" young women and forced them to work without pay to seek redemption for their sins. Irish director Aislinn Clarke's film "The Devil's Doorway" uses a Magdalene Laundry as the backdrop for this found footage movie that focuses on a pair of priests who are sent to investigate a reported miracle. The elder priest Father Thomas is a scholarly man who has traveled the world and is very skeptical of events like the one he is sent to check out. His younger colleague Father John films the events using a 16mm camera and displays a much more hopeful outlook on the possibility of witnessing a blessed sign from the Lord. Once inside the Laundry, they are met with hostility from the Mother Superior and appalled by the conditions the young women are subjected to. Yet the real terror emerges when the younger priest begins to hear voices of children in a place that has no children and witnesses some unexplained events. It gets worse when the two priests find a young pregnant woman who has the staff on edge and what happens next will test the faith and stamina of the two priests. The Devil's Doorway effectively captures the dismal condition of the notorious Irish Catholic Laundries that were prisons for many young women who worked like slaves and often had no legal protections. Ms. Clarke spent years researching the history of the Magdelene Laundries and uses an old manor house and linen mill as the setting for the movie. The institutional look of the buildings reminds one of prison while creating the perfect environment for the found footage setup. The movie does follow common tactics of found footage movies so much of the film will seem familiar, yet the realistic looking sets and dark interiors will terrify you as the events unfold.