Woody Bess’ outstanding horror-comedy Portal to Hell is a Faustian deal wrapped in an emotional redemption arc I didn’t see coming. The film follows a lonely debt collector who discovers a portal to hell in this local laundromat. After following the tracks of a demon into the back alley, Dunn is presented with a deal: three souls for the life of his cancer-stricken neighbor. But as the saying goes, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

 

Roping in Weir, the laundromat’s manager, the two devise a plan to lure terrible people into the porta to fulfill the deal. But nothing is easy. Killing people, good or bad, is complicated.