Review #67: The Other Side of the Door (2016)


This review was originally written in October 2019.

October Horror Movie Review #15: The Other Side of the Door

I think it's kind of amusing that twice in a row I watched a movie where the entire plot revolves around a mother whose son drowned and she refuses to let go. I mean, either the odds are incredibly low or there's an inordinately high number of horror films that follow that exact premise.

So this movie is about a family who has moved to India, and their oldest son tragically died in a car accident. It's been some time, but the mother is still heartbroken, and following a suicide attempt the family's Indian housekeeper tells her of an ancient ritual that will allow her to talk to her son one last time from behind the closed door of an abandoned temple. Against the housekeeper's instructions, the mother opens the door, and in doing so releases some kind of a malevolent force that... I dunno, jump scares them a bunch?

I'm not going to have a lot ot say about this film- maybe it was the similarity in premise to several other movies I watched so far this month, or maybe it was the setting, maybe it was the characters, maybe it was the little kids' acting, maybe I was just really tired, but this movie barely kept my interest. There were too many jump scares, the structure of the plot was such a straight line that there was not nearly enough buildup and it was all over too fast, and barely anything interesting happened to any of the characters. The single best part was undoubtedly the last minute or two, when the mother wakes up after the climax of the film; that definitely took me by surprise and felt genuinely clever and interesting (but the moment after it happened the movie was over).

There was nothing profoundly good or bad about this one; it didn't get on my nerves, it was just uninteresting. Maybe if watched by itself it would have been better but as day 15 of 31 movies it was not at all noteworthy.

Overall rating: 4/10

A Different Jeremy Sisto Movie I Would Recommend: May (2002)

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Next up: Haunt

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