The Other Side of the Door (2016)

Horror fans after shock scares, gore and sheer terror will find this a disappointment, it's a horror, but subtle in its delivery, it boasts a sinister plot, plays on fears, and delivers its scares with purpose.Instead of the typical British or American creaky house, we're transported to India, and its colours and sunshine, it certainly makes you see a horror film differently.It's well acted, well produced, I don't know why, but I kept thinking of the Woman in Black, that kind of delivery. For the first forty minutes very little happens, we get back story, plot, but little action, it's more creepy then scary.Not for everyone, but I enjoyed it.

Michael (Jeremy Sisto) and Maria (Sarah Wayne Callies) have given up the city that never sleeps to live in India, the part that looks like paradise and doesn't have all those third world beggars. Maria has trouble coping with the loss of her son Oliver (Logan Creran) who she accidentally drowned Susan Smith style. She is informed on how to talk to her son one last time, by going to a remote temple only known to the locals and those with Google Earth. Here the boundary between the living and dead is weak. After spreading Oliver's ashes and waiting until night, she can speak to Oliver through a door, which she is instructed never to open. She gets it all correct, except for maybe that one thing, which you would know if you are old enough to read the title.Soon they have visitations which are initially pleasant and then formula. The film was meh up until the last 10 minutes which were great.Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity. The "R" and BCFF 15 ratings I consider a bit high.

I just watched this movie with my wife and we enjoyed it. my wife says it's a bit too scary for her. :) Loved the setting of India. It creates a more mysterious story due to the place being foreign. The special effects were great and the movie kept me interested start to finish. So creepy when oliver took over lucy's body and stabbed the father. This horror film deserves no less than a 7 rating in my opinion, so to counter so much unfair criticism I decided to give this an 8!

I can't deny the fact that the premise of The Other Side of the Door is more creative than the typical tales about haunted houses and vindictive ghosts. And the same can be said about the Indian locations, which employ the city of Mumbai as the frame of exotic rituals and spiritual practices which are a bit confusing, but at least different from the Christian iconography which is so common in the horror genre. Unfortunately, co-screenwriters Johannes Roberts (who was also the director) and Ernest Riera thought that that innovation was going to be enough, so he filled the story with the most worn- out clichés, including: forced shocks every 10 or 15 minutes; skeptical husband; night noises; visions which end up being simple nightmares; gratuitous dog victim; digitally deformed faces; and evil kid (or childish spirit, in this case). The mythology of the screenplay isn't clear, but it has a certain logic which isn't convenient to examine too much, while it's not convenient to deepen into the solution offered by the Indian Brahmins to break the spell. As for the cast, we find two solid actors (Jeremy Sisto and Sarah Wayne Callies) trapped into bland and generic roles which don't require too much effort. On the positive side, I liked the way in which Roberts and Riera brought an interesting twist to the typical car accident which adds drama to any tale, because it makes us think about what we would do under similar circumstances, while inspiring fear of something like that happening in our lives... not the apocryphal "horror" of ghosts and possessions, but the real anguish about the welfare of the family; in other words, another good idea into a screenplay ruined by an insipid and listless execution. However,I think I can give The Other Side of the Door a slight recommendation, specially to those people who don't know the previously mentioned clichés by heart. Stan Lee once said: "every comic is someone's first comic", and I guess that The Other Side of the Door can be the first horror film someone watches, and in that case, I found it moderately entertaining... and mediocre enough in order not to create excessively high expectations for this genre. It's better to start from the bottom and then going up in order not to get immediately disappointed.