The Other Side of the Door

The information age has wreaked havoc on the traditional horror movie. Unexplored corners of the world always had the potential for cultural bogeymen that were just waiting to prey on unsuspecting white folks (White Zombie, I Walked With A Zombie and Wes Craven's The Serpent and the Rainbow being the most voodoo-centric). But now that even the most isolated cannibal tribes probably post their meals on Facebook, it's hard to pull off the fish-out-of-water scenario convincingly.

But The Other Side of the Door gives it the 'ol college try, working with a family of transplanted Americans living in India trying to deal with the death of their son, Oliver. Maria (Sarah Wayne Callies of The Walking Dead) blames herself choosing to pull her daughter from the sinking vehicle (the crash itself is never explained) and leaving her son to drown. And when her depression turns suicidal, the family's Indian housekeeper tells her of a forbidden temple that will allow her to say her final goodbyes...but under no condition is she to open the door!

But grief takes over and Maria exactly what she was told not to do, unleashing her son's spirit to cause all sorts of mischief around the house. Soon mischief turns into something more dangerous, threatening the very soul of Maria's daughter and pitting them against a four-armed Indian death-dealer and an army of pancake-faced cultists intent on dragging Oliver back to the afterlife.

You could make a case that The Other Side of the Door is preaching a borderline racist bit of supernatural paranoia. But that would be quite a politically correct stretch. The film is just desperate to find a corner of the world that still holds some mystery. And director Johannes Roberts does a fine job populating the movie with frighteningly exotic medicine men (it's never really explained if these ash eaters are actual physical creatures or some sort of spiritual posse but who cares), some spooky landscapes and one scraggly, double-jointed monster on loan from The Ring. The scenario pulls us out of the all-too familiar suburban landscape for a change, and deserves a couple of brownie points for that at the very least.

Callies is an above average actress who gives the role the maturity so many other PG-13 horror flicks lack. While the rest of the cast is just asked to go through the motions until the gonzo third act forces everyone to accept that this isn't one of Maria's many, many dream sequences (seriously, how many times a night can she wake up screaming before popping a couple Ambien?). The Other Side of the Door never rises above the level of a pre-teen sleepover scary movies challenge...but sometimes that's exactly what you're looking for.

20th Century Fox's blu-ray looks and sounds just as good as it should. Extras includes six deleted scenes, a Making Of and still gallery.