Background:

Seven in Heaven is an original Netflix film about two teenagers, Jude and June, that while at a house party are forced to play Seven Minutes in Heaven, a game in which people who receive the same colored card have to go into a closet and do as they please for seven minutes. While playing the game, they are chosen to go into the closet for seven minutes. Once those seven minutes were over, they emerged from the closet and into a dangerous alternate reality. June and Judy then had to attempt to survive the bullying and abuse caused by the alternate versions of their friends and find a way back to their own reality.

Origins of the Closet

Although one would say that it is odd to add the concept of alternate dimensions to a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven, I was really digging the concept and I wanted to see how the film would play out. I was just disappointed at the fact that the writers left out the origins of the closet and the reason for it being at their friend David’s house. David houses the magical closet in an upstairs room but is unaware of what it can do and at first, I assumed that as the story was to progress that the audience would get information on how the closet came to be but none of that was brought to light. During the film, the alternate version of the school guidance counselor was aware that June and Jude were not from his dimension and urged them to get back home. This being said, Mr. Wallace who knows who they really are, you would think that he would understand the reasoning behind the “portal” but he does not give us any backstory on it and that is what I wanted to hear. I wanted to understand the origins of the door and the other dimension, not just throw it into the film and take the characters on a spin.

Evil Jude

Upon crossing over to the alternate dimension, Jude leaves the party and then receives a call from his mother to go home. He walks the streets to his home and stumbles inside to find his father and his mother upset at the news that their son had killed his friend David. This information is new to Jude and is confused by it because he knows for a fact that he did not murder his friend. Later, he travels up to his room to find it covered by posters depicting heavy metal bands, Satanic symbols, horror figurines etc. He thinks that how could this be possible but then he realized that there must be an alternate version of himself who is deranged rather than innocent. Unfortunately, we do not get to see an alternate version of Jude which is quite disappointing. I feel that it could have added more to the story. Maybe even see a seen in which Good Jude has to fight Evil Jude. Instead, after we are made known that there was an Evil Jude, the story moves forward with the encounters of Jude’s and June’s friends.

Conclusion:

Overall, I enjoyed watching the film because of the interesting concept of a portal that causes the two main characters, Jude and June, to switch from one dimension to the next but I believe that there was missing plot information which would have been a great add-on, such as the origin of the portal and the appearance of an evil Jude. Personally, if the film had given a backstory on the portal and would have included a fight sequence with evil Jude, the film would have been a 10/10. Still, I give this film a 7/10!