Film

Strange how the Iraq War not only distracts our government from domestic attacks but also changes the tenor of pop-culture anxiety. Released amid today’s pundit-wrestling over Iranian-supported insurgencies, Right at Your Door brings back the early-decade dread of duct-tape supplies, bottled-water reserves and biological epidemics.

Gorak’s apocalyptic what-if has a brilliantly horrific opening that imagines the unnerving blow-by-blow of dirty bombs exploding simultaneously across Los Angeles. Out-of-work husband Brad (Cochrane) grapples at home with first-response measures—sealing the house, vainly calling wife Lexi (McCormack) over jammed phone lines—while watching the sky fill with dense flurries of ash.

But all the verisimilitude serves a deeply unrealistic plot, as the self-quarantined Brad keeps his contaminated spouse, desperate to get in, from entering their home—a cowardly act on his part and a selfish one on hers. Stressful times can bring out the worst, but more often they bring out the best: Ask any trauma-jaded New Yorker. And the script’s deliberate avoidance of the word terrorism makes this literally hermetic film that much more ridiculous. Any of the millions who experienced September 11 firsthand will find in Gorak’s West Coast version an odd mix of the authentic and the contrived.