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Other Side of the Door, The

3/10

Stars: Sarah Wayne Callies, Jeremy Sisto, Sofia Rosinsky, Logan Creran, Suchitra Pillai, Javier Botet

Director: Johannes Roberts

It’s a tad ironic, perhaps, that leading lady Sarah Wayne Callies starred in television’s The Walking Dead, since this pallid shocker shows few signs of life as it staggers through its 90 odd minutes without showing much in the way of interesting or never-before-seen signs of horrorflick life.

American couple Callies and Jeremy Sisto live in Mumbai with their young daughter, still emotionally scarred by the death of their young son in a tragic accident. Callies, unable to recover from the shock, then comes to believe that she has found an escape from deepening depression when their housekeeper Suchitra Pillai informs her about an ancient temple where it should be possible for her to heal her wound by briefly communicating with the dead boy…

Cue, as expected, horrifying supernatural consequences after Callies accidentally unleashes her dead son’s now malignant spirit into a not that terrifying collection of shockfilm clichés…

Story surprises are heavily signalled and rarely that surprising, and, while Callies and Sisto work hard to raise the show from the creative grave, they have little genuine success.

Cowriter-director Johannes Roberts does a competent-enough job, although without creating a movie that is likely to remain in one’s memory once the end credits have stopped rolling.

The most memorable aspect is the colorful Mumbai and other well-used Indian locations; otherwise, eminently forgettable and destined to end up in its correct milieu – in a late-night slot on a cable horrorfilm TV station.

Alan Frank

India/UK 2016. UK Distributor: 20th Century Fox. Colour.
95 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.

Review date: 04 Mar 2016