The Attic Door -- 2 of 5 stars
When you stretch a modestly scripted short-film idea into feature length, the result usually looks something like The Attic Door, a too-easily guessed “What’s really going on here?” Twilight Zone mystery set in the Old West.
On a weathered but well-furnished farmstead in the Utah desert, a young sister and brother (Madison Davenport and Jake Johnson) run the farm and keep house so that all will be in order when Ma and Pa get back from town, where Ma went to have her baby.
But there are terrors out here. Something is pounding behind The Attic Door. The kids keep it nailed shut, but whatever is behind that door fills their nights with fear.
Most adults will figure out what this slow but kid-friendly mystery is within seven minutes. But co-writer/director Danny Daneau stretches the tale out for another 70 before he’s done. Nice, well-scrubbed period detail, though.
Screening at: 4 p.m, April 4, Regal Winter Park 20.
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