Written by Kevin Scott, MoreHorror.com
If boyhood friends going out into the frozen wilderness, only to encounter the supernatural left you cold in “Dreamcatcher”, take a walk down a similar, but much darker path in this extremely well done Canadian horror film.
The Corridor opens with one of the friends, Tyler hiding in the closet with the body of his dead mother lying on the floor in the hallway. His friends go into the house, only to find Tyler in a crazed panic and wielding a knife. He assaults them, and is then committed to a mental institution. Flash forward a few years later, and we get a montage of all the guys carpooling together to meet at the wilderness cabin that Tyler’s mother owned. They all spent happier days there as kids, and it seems like a perfect place to mend fences. Chris (David Patrick Flemming) is single and works at a school for the deaf. Everett (James Gilbert) works at a bar, and services the lady bar owner for money and a slot at open mic night. Robert (Matthew Amyotte) is a family man that has only past days of football grandeur and memories of a full head of hair to hold on to. Jim (Glen Matthews) is married, and he and his wife are struggling with infertility issues. Then there’s Tyler (Stephen Chambers) who’s fresh from release from the institution. He makes his way to the cabin alone, and symbolically uses a kitchen knife out of the drawer to cut his patient ID bracelet off.
The tension is a little thick at first, but nostalgia kicks in and all seems well. Tyler is struggling, but taking meds to cope with it. He takes a walk alone out in the woods, and encounters an almost transparent room of gold, wavy light. Sounds weird I know, but it gets even weirder. He sees his dead mother too. Thinking it’s a hallucination, he gets his friends. They go out and encounter the light as well. Thinking it’s a new scientific discovery, everyone is excited. Tyler feels validated and a little less crazy, and everyone else is thinking fortune and fame. When everyone gets back to the cabin, the volume gets turned up a bit on all the underlying conflicts between them. Okay, let’s be honest, way, way up! It seems like the gold, wavy light brings out the bad in everyone and adds a little more evil of its own.
I can’t recommend “The Corridor” enough. It’s a slow burn, but worth it for the shock value of where things will go later on. I’m completely on board for some lengthy character development with a payoff like we get here. With some disturbing imagery thrown in to boot, it turns downright creepy. Like Tyler’s dead mother showing up on Robert’s old football game VHS tapes that’s even scarier than the toploader VCR that he plays them on. Easily one of the best films that I’ve seen this year.