DON’T OPEN THE DOOR (1975; d. SFBrownrigg, w. Frank Schaefer + Kerry Newcomb)

1st image middle-aged Annie making way up train corridor to Judge Stemple (sounds like "Temple")’s office (mature psychological material coming into consciousness, on predetermined course) to announce she’s tired of caring for elderly Harriet Post (played by Annie actress Anne MacAdams’s real-life mother Rhea: Annie not-the-daughter dream-representation soon 2B embodied in own NTD-heroine, disinclination twd association w/ "mother"/adult self-img heroine’s plight as well) + she hip to what he + Dr Crawther up to (keeping Harriet doped-up [self avoiding the issue] while shadow 3rd man plunders house: complex depleting ego), surprise in that car stationary (Self going nowhere), railroad noises via cassette (Judge [whose credentials later questioned casting him as ½ loony not-the-consc’ss] reality-fabricating God, his "All aboard" dream-consc’ss calling shadow-players to participate in drama "Let-there-be"-style); ignoring admonition (firebrand agent of change w/i), Ann calls Harriet’s brash granddaughter Mandy (communiqué from unconscious – via answering machine, à la Judge's cassette: psychological mechanism + relation btwn 2 characters – followed by later, menacing calls: reports more upsetting as sanity crumbles) concerning grandma’s failing health (own infirmity) + urging her to come to rural Allerton + take care of her (need to w/draw + investigate psychic disturbance).

Mandy fills in ex-boyfriend Dr Nick Cabrizi (separated already from physical world + regenerative "track," he in doghouse for being too "fast") on destination + history (1 + same, return as to correct/revisit past trauma) in "that house of seasons" (regeneration – starting w/ + including death) where mother Rita (own adult self-img) murdered 13 yrs before (mid-point of life, at which Self split into two at start of reproductive maturity; 1962 also yr of JFK’s assassination in TX place of production, film document of nationally riven psyche), flashback climaxing w/ dropping of shocked-looking doll (loss of innocence in grip of probable molester [after contents of matriarchal "house" à la sex: he invisible not-the-father, murder scene primal scene in which child witnesses daddy "killing" (having sex w/) mommy + recognizes own independence from family romance + sexual self 2B], porcelain-faced grownup Mandy now cynical + unshockable) before titles roll (preceding info In-the-Beginning predisposing material 2B fleshed out in dream/drama to follow).

Mandy’s arrival witnessed by dapper nerd Claude Kearn in upstairs window (presence already in house/mind, later revealed as facet of same; cf similar POV in similar Southern Gothic Dear Dead Delilah + SFB’s own Don’t Look in the Basement), 1 of 3 men already there (including Judge/Mind + Dr Crawther/Body, CK misshapen Soul; their unwelcome inhabitation suggested violation of flashback, entire film pubescent girl’s fear of sex evoked by title admonition ["door" hymen]) whom Mandy meets after checking in on grandma (her "go away" sleeper’s desire to avoid restless inquiry), Judge’s disapproving description of latter as "very independent lady" their collective issue w/ Mandy as well (filmed in heyday of Women’s Lib); once alone, explores house up to cupola (lovely crane shot in most sophisticated of regional dir’s films – his next-to-last) bathed in multicolored light (phantasmagoria in otherwise studiedly naturalistic film: both childhood impression + intimation of instability in upper reaches of consciousness), soon arrested by breathy phonecall "Wellllcommmme" (like one preceding matricide, caller addressing doll à la similarly omnipresent/-scient God: not-the-father [real one never mentioned] still presence in "independent" wmn’s lives à la consciousness relegated to crawlspaces in sleep [+ vice versa for unconscious during day]).

After similar misadventures next day, calls in Nick (appealing to positive animus for support), who has grandma admitted (croaking "mus-e-um" voice of senex [Wise Wmn w/i + Self trying to speak thru narcotic murk aka sleep] warning of source of threat, i.e. unconscious, where reside similarly warehoused memories Mandy has avoided ½ her life) contra Crawther’s insistence (replacing 1 physician/body w/ another same time M xchg’g places w/ g’ma: dream-representatives taking over from real persons as psychodrama gets rolling); M then goes to Claude’s museum (as tho following gma’s directive), where offended by his plunder from her home (unconsc pillaging day-life for imgs/material even while preserving memories [real source of offense]), climaxing w/ his presentation of mannequin-recreation of mother by child-Mandy’s bed (intruding on home/life even outside home; outrage on being shown deepest-held [in darkened upstairs rm] memory/img of unconsc [taken for granted] security + presexual oneness w/ Mother, shattered by "entry" of male).

Claude pleads case to Judge (in his "train" office: all men fashioning own fantasy in real world) to keep stuff + deny Mandy house (appeal to superego, interest in keeping fem out of "house" elucidated in later Psycho-drag murder), he in turn insinuating Claude killed Mandy’s mother (citing unsolved – as far as exegesis goes, uninvestigated: metaphorical, unreal – murder unresolved feelings surrounding loss, possible reason for his + Crawther’s otherwise unexplained coveting of house [trying to hang onto forsaken Mommy]; indisposition to bring indictment collusion w/ stunted self, lack of explanation suggesting bond inherent in warring, in-fighting psyche [+ male society]); later, M arrives home to find Judge already there (repeated invasions of privacy echo-chamber mind replaying original trauma) w/ offer to buy (rptd propositions reiterating Nick’s solicitation of sex) + leaving w/ threat via Lewis Carroll (film version of ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, w/ Annie, Claude, Judge + Doc characters from story): "Anything that had a head cd be beheaded" (what's left of reason [film adding new twist to term judge-mental] threatening to cut self off entirely in heroine’s mind, he also offering fulfillment of sublimated wish to separate from violated/alienated body [title sequence’s disembodied doll heads disconnected mind in dreams, self + others rendered representational, iconic, archetypal]).

Crawther stops by museum (healing agent entering not-the-mind) long enuf to get clobbered (delivering on Judge’s warning) by Rita-dressed Claude (in doll-like makeup: twice-removed img of victim-femininity, repression of which resurfaces as murderous-fem, symbol of Mandy/country’s loss of innocence returning as Destroyer [cf SFB Basement’s mental-hospital Vietnam]); Claude then calls M again + taunts, "[mother Rita] was evil. She deserved to die" (innocence/security false, loss inevitable + necessary to maturation), sending her out door + into Annie, 1st seen since "wakeup" call: Claude’s calls similar (her "'Wasn’t for me you wdn’ta got those phone calls" referring to own but confused w/ psycho’s, tying both together [she nurturing not-the-mother forcing confrontation w/ disturbance]), encounter w/ seemingly implicated (tho actually not, any longer) not-the-mother on heels of really-NTM CK fatefully breaking down border btwn victim + victimizer in self.

Next call drives her farther off edge, telling her he’s waited 13 yrs for her to help him (dysfunction now reaching maturity) + goading her to touch self + make coital "sounds" (drawing out repressed sexuality, helping "him" actually helping self), his vocal façade breaking (complex becoming more recognizable as she gives in to primal urges: she avoiding identification w/ the Sexual Mother by avoiding sex, he psychological mechanism preserving mother-daughter relation + forcing its maturation); finally disconnects + retrieves butcher knife used to kill mom (wanting to reiterate separation as fusion impends), then calls Nick (connecting to outside world instead of discourse w/i) + is rebuffed by him this time (grandma "getting worse" remote dreamer + adult self-img healing agent must nurture, his fixation on body blinding him to fact g’ma worsening because of Mandy’s escalating psych’l trauma), Judge appearing just in time to also get clobbered (eliminating conscious faculty so Self can finish descent into dream), causing M to faint (final abdication of ego, succumbing to vortex of refraining dialogue to which she no longer capable of retorting).

Wakes to reassuring sight of Nick in bed (maturation achieved w/o trauma of actual sex), but snapshot of dead doc (not-Nick: dreamer’s recognition of inert physical self + loss of healing capacity) drives her to discover "Nick" himself one of Claude’s dummies (cf opening stationary train: transcendence of body + closer association w/ doll lost at site of trauma + now manipulated by CK, film fast becoming virtual remake of ’72 Bava Lisa + the Devil), whose arm falls off in jostling (castrated, unable to "help"); Judge wakes (as Self awakened by revelation) but quickly dispatched upstairs, real-Nick (similarly "revived") arriving too late + clubbed by round-the-bend Mandy herself (final – real – elimination of mind + body) + falling down shaft at center of house (back into womb, surrounding staircases iris w/ cupola pupil, falling back into eye as into unconscious), CK’s "Shall we continue, Miz Post?" resuming colloquy w/ self (grandma’s figurative death elsewhere, at psychological remove), prompting her mad laughter (pleasure in relinquishing ego) + last img of doll (w/ which she now associated: expired [lifeless] not-the-body, plaything of mysterious, invisible, insane God), diminishing into darkness.

SFB’s last horror film, followed 8 yrs later by teen sex comedy Thinkin’ Big.