The Devil’s Doorway (2018)
In this found-footage film from director and co-writer Aislinn Clarke, a pair of priests in 1960 Ireland visit one of the notorious “Magdalene laundries”—where unwed mothers and other so-called “fallen women” toiled under the watchful eyes of nuns who were basically prison guards—in the hopes of capturing the “first miracle caught on film.” But the statue said to be shedding bloody tears becomes far less interesting once the priests realize the facility is harboring not just cruelty and harsh conditions, but also something decidedly demonic. Found-footage horror has been done to death at this point, and there’s plenty of shaky camerawork on display here, but The Devil’s Doorway does effectively leverage a setting that would already be disturbing even without the sense that something Satanic is happening around its fringes.
