‘What Happened To Doris?’ Review – Real-World Paranormal Horror Outing Is A Repetitive Disappointment [Fantastic Fest 2026]

Nick Simon’s film is based on the infamous Doris Bither case, where a single mother living in the Los Angeles suburbs believed that she was being assaulted by an invisible entity in her home. The film follows Doris, played by Heather Graham, as the attacks become more and more violent and depraved, and the people around her question if she is telling the truth. Eventually, paranormal investigators are invited in, with equipment, to uncover what is happening to her and her children. There are some genuinely effective scares here, but the movie itself is far too familiar.

Doris is living with her children, Ricky, Brian, and Sylvia, in a messy suburban home that gives the movie a grounded quality. I liked the production design quite a bit, as the house feels lived in rather than looking like a perfectly decorated period set. It is cluttered and uncomfortable-looking rather than trying to fit in with the era. That helps the 1970s setting feel more believable, as What Happened to Doris? does not glamorize the period. The house feels like an actual family home instead and makes the viewer feel more immersed.

Heather Graham is good as Doris, especially in the way she plays someone who is exhausted from constantly having to prove that she isn’t imagining what is happening to her. Everyone already has their own reasons for doubting her, whether it’s her drinking and her home life. Graham makes Doris’s frustration feel real as the attacks get worse and nobody seems willing to take her seriously.

Despite her performance, one can’t help but think that the script itself isn’t on the same level. The problem? Well, it’s that the screenplay does not do a good job of fleshing out Doris or her family beyond what makes up the case. The children are present but rarely feel like fully developed characters with their own personalities or relationships with their mother. Kandy, played by Candi Marie, is one of the few people who take Doris seriously, but even that does not seem to be explored as much as it could be. The movie has the ingredients for a good family drama beneath the supernatural story, but it largely uses those elements to push Doris toward the next paranormal incident.

That becomes even more obvious when the investigators arrive. Marcus Coloma portrays Gordon, and Morgan Peter Brown plays Taylor, while Mimi Rogers plays Dr. Lillian Ross, their supervisor. Rogers is easily the biggest missed opportunity among them, as she is an experienced performer who could have brought a lot of weight to the story. Ross has her own history with the paranormal, but the character largely exists to explain things to everyone else. The movie would rather have her act as the person who knows what the supernatural activity means, rather than someone with her own perspective and history.

That is where What Happened to Doris? really starts to feel like a cheaper version of The Conjuring. Rather than developing its own identity from the Doris Bither case, the movie repeatedly falls back on the familiar paranormal-investigator formula. Strange activity, skeptical characters, investigators entering the house, specialized equipment, escalating manifestations, and eventually a confrontation with the entity. None of these are inherently bad, but they have been used so many times that the movie needs a stronger personality to make itself stand out.

Fortunately, the actual scares are often much better than the screenplay that surrounds them. Simon knows that the entity does not need to be constantly visible to work, and he makes good use of shadows, objects that are moved, and something that seems to be just outside of the frame. One of the better sequences is something as simple as a cast-iron pan suddenly flying across the room, but the movie gives that enough buildup that the sudden movement works.

The entity, referred to as “Mr. Whosit” by Sylvia, is also more effective when the film keeps it mysterious. Kevin Keppy portrays the Entity, and the movie wisely does not spend too much time showing exactly what it is. The uncertainty allows some scenes to work via suggestion rather than simply relying on visual effects. When the movie slows down and allows the house itself to be threatening, there is a sense of unease.

Unfortunately, those are wrapped up in a story that becomes increasingly repetitive. Doris experiences something strange, people question what she saw, the investigators try to document it, another incident happens, and the cycle continues. The escalation does not necessarily feel like actual progression because the characters do not change enough with each encounter. The movie keeps adding paranormal activity but does not give the story enough new emotional or dramatic material. The artificiality of the filmmaking also makes it harder to become completely immersed. There are times when the dialogue and performances feel like they are delivering information for the audience rather than people reacting to something terrifying. This is especially obvious during the investigation scenes, where characters explain things that could have been communicated by behavior or atmosphere. The movie wants us to believe these people are dealing with something extraordinary, but it does not always make their reactions seem spontaneous.

That is a shame because the underlying story does have plenty of things to work with. Doris was not just dealing with strange things happening in her house, and according to the case that inspired the film, she became the focus of a controversial paranormal investigation. The movie is most interesting when considering how quickly people can be dismissive of a woman because of her circumstances. Doris has to convince people that something is happening to her before they will listen, which allows the horror to be more human.

The film also gets mileage out of Sylvia’s relationship with the supernatural. Her protective doll and her naming of the entity as Mr. Whosit provide the story with an unsettling childlike quality. Children accepting something that adults refuse to acknowledge can be effective for horror, especially when the movie does not over-explain what they know about the situation.

By the time the story gets to the climactic confrontation involving fire, however, What Happened to Doris? has already shown most of its hand. The earlier scenes of uncertainty and suggestions are more effective than the larger confrontation because they make the entity feel unknowable. Once the movie has to provide a more conventional climax, some of that mystery is lost.

There is still something worthwhile here. The 1970s setting feels appropriately grimy rather than polished, Heather Graham provides a believable performance, and Simon occasionally makes genuinely creepy sequences via sound, shadows, and things moving when they shouldn’t. The movie can create the kind of scare that gets you to look towards the corner of the frame, wondering if there is something standing there.

But those are buried under a screenplay that is artificial and repetitive. The characters aren’t developed well enough to serve as a good family drama, Mimi Rogers is handed very little material, and the paranormal-investigator structure makes the movie feel derivative. What Happened to Doris? has some good scares, but it does not develop its own identity enough to be more than a haunted-house story wrapped around a fascinating real-world case. 

What Happened to Doris? had its World Premiere at Fantastic Fest 2026.

Director: Nick Simon

Writer: Thomas Fenton

Rated: NR

Runtime: 92m

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