Jenny Burman Jenny Burman
 
A Los Angeles blog
from Echo Park

 
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At Your Door

The film Right at Your Door is unrecognizable as Echo Park, which is part of its charm. The bio-warfare horror movie was filmed on Cerro Gordo in Elysian Heights, and it seemed like the crew was there forever, and then 99% of the movie takes place at the lovely craftsman at 1621. It's supposed to be Anywhere LA, though the views it offers of downtown are pure EP. Anyway, the Cerro Gordo house provides the vantage point for a scenario in which many dirty bombs are let loose on Los Angeles. As with most California disaster movies and others in which exceedingly unpleasant things happen, the story begins with the morning radio news. In this case it’s put to good effect because the only other information we receive is what the main characters can see with their own eyes -- minus a quick frantic drive around Silver Lake and Echo Park, it’s all house house house. No one utters the words Echo Park (that I noticed) or Elysian Heights. Good thing, since the movie is as close to being a genuine nightmare -– the experience of watching it -- as I can think. Save one horriifying film they made us watch in 9th grade about a thermo-nuclear blast in England. Anyway, they dress up the exterior with white virus ash that looks like a massive white-fly infestation. Then a bunch of ladybugs come and eat it all up, and nearly everyone lives to tell the tale. Just kidding. There is a smart twist. There is even genuine horror -- moral as well as government-sponsored. There are no ladybugs.


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