The Other Side of the Door review: Yet another horror film where white people bump ignorantly into a culture they don’t quite understand.
The Other Side of the Door review
It seems to be a rare genetic condition inherent in the blood of white screenplay writers, that they must search out other cultures, find a bit supernatural folklore and then turn it into a generic horror film. Let’s face it, foreigners and their customs are scary, or at least that’s the only explanation I can think of. This time around it’s the turn of Hinduism and India from Johannes Roberts the director of the equally bland Storage 24.
The Other Side Of The Door follows a married couple, Maria (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Michael (Jeremy Sisto) who have settled in Mumbai, had two children, and then tragically lost their son when their car ended up in a river. The opening parts to the film are scenes of very well played out drama. Callies is terrific representing the grief and blame over her son’s death, while Sisto is the strong and considerate type who tries his best to make things better while also focusing on his job. This early on it hints at a worthwhile drama with horror undertones. But, it soon throws all this aside for an excruciatingly crafted supernatural chiller.
The Other Side of the Door review
Maria and Michael’s Nanny, who is called Piki (Suchitra Pillai-Malik) but is just a walking ball of plot needed exposition, tells Maria of a temple in a her town where she can scatter the ashes of her son on the steps, lock herself inside, and then chat to Michael through the door to say her final goodbye. Simple enough, as long as Maria doesn’t open the door. All she has to do is keep that door closed…she opens the door. The annoying part about this is that Piki of course fails to describe in detail what will happen if Maria does open the door. I guess a mystic scriptwriter sealed her mouth shut.
Once the son returns he is the average case of an inconsistent entity more into pranks than actual horror. One moment he wants bedtime stories, the next he’s manhandling his sister Lucy (Sofia Rosinsky). His powers also shift, one moment being able to control seemingly anything, the next he backs down after a stern talking to. We’re never too clear on the son’s emotional state, his motivations, or his end game, making it very hard to become connected at all.
The Other Side of the Door review
The biggest problem with The Other Side Of The Door however is the atrocious sound. The majority of horror films need to learn to shut the hell up and just be scary. TOSOTD not only mistakes jumps for scares, but has so much sound going on it frazzles the mind and leaves you confused. One scene has a book fly off the shelf and flick through the pages. The sound of paper wasn’t enough for the sound designers here, so they added a xylophone effect and layered it over the top while the score played over the top of that. It gets to the point where there are so many sounds, you’re not sure what the sounds are supposed to go with. At times you’ll hear ambient noise, the score, choral voice work, sound effects, and more all shoved together in a complete botch job that ruins the entire film.
The pacing is also a factor, with the non-stop antics of ghosts appearing in every scene. Even moments that should be the reflective downtime suddenly turn into more jump scare tactics. More is never more when it comes to horror, and the attempts to sustain a sense of fear just coagulate into a loud and desperate film.
Good performances and the increasingly buried core of loss and remorse suggest this film could have been something decent or even enjoyable, but it also feels as though somebody has come in and continuously added to the film in the hope of evening out the edges. Unfortunately, it’s a cliched mess that is boring and disappointing. Disappointing as there is a single shot that was magnificent. As Maria stands by a fire there’s a still apparition behind her. This shot is silent and I didn’t even notice at first that there was anything there. See what happens when ghosts don’t announce themselves with huge sound effects? They can actually scare.
The Other Side of the Door review by Luke Ryan Baldock, February 2016.
The Other Side of the Door is released in cinemas from 4th March.
