THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR (2016) Review
Directed by Johannes Roberts
There’s something strange at how the story works that even at broad daylight, it wants to scare the audiences. The Other Side of the Door is a horror film that wants to look new or at least an addition to other horror films shot on a foreign land but as hard as it tries, it ends up being predictable and uses the same old jump scares for its horrifying moments.
The film wants to become something, building its narrative from a new kind of event from the same old don’t-do-this-but-the-character-can’t-resist-it situation. But you can see that it doesn’t try to overdo its story, it follows its narrative in a simple manner until its climax. Sarah Wayne Callies does a fine job as a mother longing for her son and begins to act crazy after the communication to the other side has been done. There’s a lot of potential in its story but they resort to tell something familiar and not scary.
Its supernatural genre is used mildly but there’s a lot of material in the film that could be used for a more suspenseful horror experience. It’s just another horror movie that hits our cinemas these days without wanting to be noticed because of its decent story but wants to be remembered for its jump scares and few interesting story lines it can offer.
1.5 OUT OF 5 STARS
“The Other Side of the Door” is now showing in Philippine cinemas nationwide from 20th Century Fox. Rated R-13 by the MTRCB.