Film Review: Entrance (2012)

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SYNOPSIS:

Suziey Block stars as a young woman living out her twenties in a city. She shares a rather nice apartment with a roommate while maintaining a job at a local coffee house. Her life is pretty routine until a series of strange events start to happen. First there was that strange car that seemed to be following her when she left the local watering hole, and then her beloved dog came up missing. Luckily the young girl’s roommate comes to the rescue with the idea of a house party to cheer her friend up. Just when the girls thought things couldn’t get any worse they are proved horribly wrong…

REVIEW:

Directed by: Dallas Richard Hallam and Patrick Horvath
Starring: Suziey Block, Karen Baird, Farley Burge and Karen Gorham

“I know you don’t love me, and that’s okay because I don’t know if I love you…”

Dallas Richard Hallam and Patrick Horvath’s film Entrance is very similar to lighting a fuse on your favorite firecracker. You watch with anticipation as it slowly burns and goes deep inside and then suddenly spring to life when the whole thing explodes. This film does just that, it lures you in and plays with you for a while before delivering an explosive finale.

Suziey Block stars in the film which essentially follows her around her routine life in the city. She deals with her roommate; she feeds her dog, goes to work, comes home and goes to sleep. …repeat. Occasionally the viewer gets to see her out in bars but for the most part the girl’s life is pretty routine.

Hallam and Horvath take their time setting this one up, and let me tell you viewers that patience is a virtue and you will be rewarded. The film follows the young girl through her routine and it feels like the camera is always right there….it almost feels camcorderish at times in the film (this is not an insult since it truly lets the viewer into the characters life and later in the film allows more sympathy to be felt since it makes the events seem real).
Things pick up in Entrance when a house party is thrown by the two girls. Guests begin to arrive and soon they are all drinking wine and enjoying each others company. Half way through this entire sequence the power in the apartment goes out and when it comes back on Suziey’s character is being attacked by a person in a mask. From there Entrance becomes a shower of sparks much like that beloved firework mentioned above.

The flow of Entrance can be slow but it allows for all sorts of suspense to be set up. In one particular scene Suziey is leaving the local pub and a car behind her suddenly turns on its headlights and slowly begins to drive behind her. Quickly the young girl takes a turn and the car continues down the street and the young girl as well as the viewer is given the opportunity to take a sigh of relief. There are several scenes similar to this throughout the film as it builds into its climax yet the most emotional is definitely when the young girl’s dog goes missing. She goes about her normal routine and goes through an entire day without seeing her beloved pet. Sleep of course does not come easy yet when she wakes and goes to feed the dog in the morning something has obviously ate the food from the day before.

The cast of Entrance handle their roles rather well. Suziey does quite well in her performance rather she is bored at work, distressed over her missing pet or having meaningless after bar sex. She shines however during the ending sequence causing the viewer to actually feel the young victims pain….I might add Entrance goes to the whole “what you don’t see is worse than anything you could see” philosophy of violence so gore hounds might not care to much for this one…though fiends who enjoy their horror in the form of a slap across the face that suddenly springs you to life are definitely going to want to check this one out.

Entrance (2012)