Some pretty cheesy acting and some really unbelievable fight scenes between the woman in the apartment and her would-be attacker. In addition, the little kid was MOST obnoxious. I wanted to put him over my knee every time he was on the screen barking orders and disobeying the mother.

The father's disbelief in the mother's claims of harrassment were stupid--no husband would just laugh off harrassment like this.

Also, the police's offering zero help to her when she went to them was off-the-charts in the unbelievable realm.

So yeah, it was stupid and yeah, it was ridiculous, but it had a couple of scary scenes that made me finish it.

When I stumble upon the 1988 Japanese thriller "Door", by random chance here in 2024, I needed no persuasion to sit down and watch it, as I have always been a fan of Asian cinema. In fact, I had never even heard about the movie, so I virtually had no idea what I was in for here.

Writers Ataru Oikawa and Banmei Takahashi didn't exactly put together a script and storyline that I found particularly entertaining, much less actually thrilling. The narrative was bland and sluggishly slow paced, which made sitting through 95 minutes of watching the movie quite an ordeal.

I wasn't familiar with the actresses and actors on the cast list. But the acting performances were fair, despite the fact that the actors and actresses didn't have a whole lot to work with.

The insanely annoying music just didn't help further the movie one bit. And I just don't understand why some of the characters in the movie sounded like they were speaking through a sound-distorting microphone, whereas others were clear as day.

I have to say that the apartment complex where the movie takes place has amazingly poor acoustics, since the footsteps of people walking outside on the hallway could be heard with loudly resounding echoing inside the apartment.

"Door" was a swing and a miss of a thriller, and I found very little entertainment as the movie moved on with the speed of a snail. This is hardly a movie I would recommend to fans of Asian thrillers. And after having suffered through "Door", I must admit that I have zero interest in tracking down parts 2 and 3.

My rating of director Banmei Takahashi's 1988 movie "Door" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.

Yasuko (Keiko Takahashi) is alone. The kind of alone where even though she has a husband and a son, she's alone. Longingly alone. Trapped at home all day, unless she's running errands. She lives for her family and the only people that she often interacts with are the constant sales calls and salesmen knocking at her door. Some of them are pretty determined. Not all of them are as deranged as Yamakawa (Daijirô Tsutsumi).

He wants to sell her English lessons and she's made a mistake by leaving the door just chained and not locked. His invasion of her high rise apartment is dealt with by slamming the door, injuring his hand. That's not where things end.

Yamakawa -- like many of the salesmen -- knows way too much about his marks. Now, he starts calling Yasuko constantly, breathing heavy, 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.

Director Banmei Takahashi, who co-wrote Door with Ataru Oikawa, has a career filled with movies that infuse sex and violence. Incredibly, Keiko Takahashi is his wife and he puts her through hell here, but in the final moments of the movie, she rises above, literal chainsaw in hand, and pays her attacker back. She never apologized for breaking his hand and she's not about to apologize now.

This was followed by two sequels, Door II: Tokyo Diary about a call girl and the risks she takes, and Door III, in which a salesgirl is "stalked by the strange and supernatural," which means that now I need to hunt down both of those movies.

Man, the sound of that doorbell is making me nervous now.