Your place or mine? After meeting and hitting it off with the mysterious Daniel (Billy Postlethwaite), Lana (Emma McDonald) gets to know her new man by taking a literal tour of his past. See, Daniel keeps a collection of keys to all the places he’s ever lived, and the temptation to get steamy in other people’s homes is an irresistibly illicit thrill.
But, as Lana learns more about Daniel, it becomes clear that the past (specifically his) is a dangerous place. What begins as a kinky fantasy takes a darker turn as skeletons from both of their closets emerge from behind locked doors.
This dark thriller by Joy Wilkinson hooks on to a juicy concept (Cronenberg or De Palma would have directed the hell of it in the 80s), and the pair’s games are initially fraught with eroticism and tension. McDonald and Postlethwaite (yes, son of Pete) don’t have the greatest chemistry, but their scenes together simmer with intensity, and McDonald is particularly strong as the foolhardy yet vulnerable Lara.
It’s with a sense of inevitability that the film descends into a more traditional kind of stalk-and-slash, losing much of that delicious tension on the way out of the door. 7 Keys is a deviously dark British thriller with an irresistible premise, but doesn’t quite have the ending locked down.
7 KEYS premiered at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest on August 24th, 2024.
