SILVA SCREEN PRESENTS
The Boy Behind The Door
Scored by Emmy Award winning composer Antony Sanko, The Boy Behind the Door is a 2021 American horror-thriller film written and directed by David Charbonier and Justin Powell. The film stars Ezra Dewey, Lonnie Chavis, Kristin Bauer van Straten (True Blood, Maleficent, Seinfeld), Scott Michael Foster (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Californication). The Charbonier / Powell debut feature focuses on two boys attempting to escape their kidnapper’s house. Interestingly, this is a film in which children are the heroes but the film is not a children’s film on any level. It was released on the streaming service Shudder on July 29, 2021.
The film received glowing reviews, with MovieWeb describing it as “tense and riveting as thriller flicks come” and stating that “Shudder has a legitimate hit”. Film Week claims it to be “the most nerve-wracking small horror film that I have seen in a very, very long time” and New York Times focuses on the storytelling describing it as “virtuosic, almost abstractly taut”.
The emotional complexity of the Boy Behind The Door is assiduously depicted by the Sanko’s dreamy, expanding and contracting and at points interrupted, electronic score. The minimalist and beautiful eerie guitar theme in Six Hours Earlier and beautiful ethereal harmonies in Resolution mirror the inner normality of the protagonists’ world, interrupted by violence. Sanko observes “Composing the score to The Boy Behind the Door was like taking a deep dive into the depths of human depravity. And I mean that in the best possible way. David and Justin’s directorial style opened up a lot of space to explore as a composer, and I got to work in a musical sandbox that I really love.”
Originally trained in classical guitar, piano and composition, the Emmy Award winning composer and producer Anton Sanko has been making music for film and television for over thirty years. His first commission in film was for Jonathan Demme, whom he met while playing keyboards for Suzanne Vega in the mid 80’s. Demme offered Anton the opportunity to score his documentary Cousin Bobby. Sanko’s other notable film credits include the Rabbit Hole, starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart, Ouija, Jessabelle and The Possession. In 2019 he was nominated for a French Academy Award (The Cesar) for his score to Michael Hers’ film Amanda. He recently completed The Half of It for director Alice Wu and Fractured for director Brad Anderson. Both projects were for Netflix. In 2018, he was co-composer for the film adaptation of The Seagull, along with Nico Muhly which starred Annette Bening, Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss and Corey Stoll, directed by Michael Mayer.
Release date: 24th September 2021
Digital album: SILED4913
TRACKLIST
1 Boy Behind the Door
2 Six Hours Earlier
3 The Wrist Watch
4 Stabbed Creep / Fingernail
5 Oh No
6 Eyeball / Here’s Johnny
7 The Safe
8 Kevin Braves the Shocks
9 Body Drag
10 Ms. Burton
11 Redroom
12 The Basement
13 Resolution
