The Other Side of the Door (2016)

To me, this movie is perfection.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

"The Other Side of the Door" is one of those horror films that had so much potential but fell a little flat. The story is about a wife who loses her son in a horrific car accident but then finds a way to say her last goodbyes after he is gone but she doesn't follow the rules of what has to be done to say her last goodbyes, so as a result strange things start happening. Great idea but the film could have been written better, not saying this film was totally bad, it just could have been written a little better. Instead of being more of a horror film, maybe this film was more about a wife who is struggling in her marriage because of the loss of her child because a lot of that was expressed in this film. With that being said, the horror side of this film wasn't all that scary. The jump out of your seat scenes isn't really going to make you jump out of your seat and the ghost scenes were nice but they weren't really scary, but I've seen a whole lot worse. If you watch this film you won't be disappointed, just don't expect a night of sleeping with the lights on.

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.

Being bored can have it's advantages, it might frustrate you of course but it can also inspire you to do things that aren't boring instead.Personally I enjoy watching a good movie (something this is not), listening to some good music, going for walks or bike-rides, seeing new things and old things that are worth seeing more than once, playing chess etc etc.I'm just rambling on here as you can see but that's because as far as this movie goes there is very little to be said.If you like horrors to be familiar, meaning have all the clichés that's humanly possible packed into one movie or if you've never seen a horror ever in your life then I suppose this is watchable.The acting is uninspired and the scares are poorly executed and the pace is painfully slow.And the last scene is one of the dumbest I've seen in recent years, almost enough to lower the rating to a 2 but I'll be nice, they at least kind of sort of tried albeit not much.

Considering this filmmaker from the B movies, this is not a bad one, probably it may remain as his best work for sometime. Definitely not a great horror film either, yet the rating it has received is a very low. The title says everything, but there are other things in the narration to get engaged with. Obviously a bit slow, and patches between the scenes should have been developed better. But overall film was slightly above average if you welcome a blend between two different cultures and themes.It was the tale of a western couple who settled in Mumbai, but the film opens with their plan to start a family and later it moves to six years forward. Now they're grieving with their son's death, especially the mother with a guilty feeling. Then she comes to know a place to make a contact her dead son and to say proper goodbye. But what follows is the supernatural chaos in the house and finding a way to fix everything is the remaining film to reveal.The concept was really wonderful, but the film was designed to be not scary or maybe those parts were just a cliché. You know those dead guys in the make-ups try to scare you stuffs. The story wise, it is refreshing, but should have been added more to it to make further interesting. It was just a 90 minute film, yet feel somewhat lengthy. Actors were decent, the locations were okay, the production was much better and the overall film was acceptable kind. Except easily predictable scenes, not bad for a casual watch.6/10