Are you guys seeing this?
Main Cast: Francesca Reale, Laurence O’Fuarain
Director: Marc Klasfeld
I was looking for something to watch on Amazon Prime and this movie, DO NOT ENTER, kept popping up on the screen. So I gave the trailer a look, saw it wasn’t too overly long, and dove in.
DO NOT ENTER is about a group of urban explorers who stream their exploits in hopes of growing their channel and their brand. After one of their members, JD (Kai Caster), breaks their code by stealing something from one of their sites, the other four, down in the dumps, set their sites on the Paragon Hotel, a massive building that’s been abandoned for years. Reported site of Myer Lansky’s missing $300,000,000, the hotel was closed when the owner was accused of murdering his wife.
The Creepers, as they call themselves, with reporter Frank (Larence O’Fuarain) tagging along, sneak into the hotel and begin their exploration. This is a horror movie with a 91-minute run-time so it doesn’t take long for things to start to go awry, starting with the disappearance of Diane (Adaline Rudolph). As boyfriend Rick (Jake Manley), along with Cora (Francesca Reale), Vernon (Shane Paul McGhie), and Frank search for her with the intention of getting out as soon as they find her, they’re soon confronted by JD and his new gang, the Scavengers, led by the unhinged Tod. Tod doesn’t want the fame, he doesn’t care about exploring the ruins, he just wants to know where the money is, and if he has to kill every last Creeper in his search to find it, so be it.
If only Tod was the worst thing they were going to meet that night. The Paragon Hotel is abandoned, but it’s not empty.
I had a good time with this movie. I’d sort of expected it to be found footage, with the streamers angle, but it wasn’t—which worked here because some situations were simply not going to work with those constraints.
Written by Dikega Hadnot, Spencer Mandel, and Stephen Susco from the novel CREEPERS by David Morrell, DO NOT ENTER was directed by Marc Klasfeld, the man who brought us Alien Ant Farm’s “Smooth Criminal” video, Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” and Foo Fighters’ “Times Like These”. This appears to be his first movie, and if he continues like this, I think he’s got a decent career in the genre.
The set design of the old hotel was amazing and while I’m not one for being inside places like this that are probably full of vermin, I would love to take a trip inside the Paragon Hotel. In the daytime, when the nocturnal creatures are sleeping, of course.
DO NOT ENTER isn’t breaking any new ground, and no one’s acting career is going to be built on the back of their performance here (none of them were bad, except maybe Hamilton who’s just doing an older version of Henry Bowers, they were just doing good work, not necessarily great work), but it’s a good little flick that passed an afternoon with no regrets. I had a moment when it was starting where I thought maybe I should find something else real quick, but I stuck with it and I’m glad I did. DO NOT ENTER was horror on the right track. Show it to your normie friends and see if it wins a few new converts.
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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