Simply Perfect

Memorable, crazy movie

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

A good plot, but it somehow feels the film is missing crucial information. It would have been far more effective had they shown the accident scene, instead of just showing it in flash backs. Although the film is very atmospheric, there are very little scares. Some rather effective visual effects. A very good message is being conveyed here, though.

I find it very funny so many disliked the film maybe because it has no real graphic horror or sexual content that most of the critiques seem to need to enjoy a simple ghost story. This may not be the best ghost story ever told but it has plenty of creepy & atmospheric moments & a great ending. To many horror buffs can't just enjoy a story without sex & graphic gore they aren't really fans of the genre & i fail to see why they are so surprised when she opens the door when told not to ,it's like to body under the sheet you dont want to look but but still you have to. This is not a bad film & the story though it's been told before like in Pet Cemetery love make people that are grieving do things they shouldn't do . I enjoyed the film from the perspective of ghost story's & though it may not be the best ghost tale ever told these comments of hate are as lame as can be.

Or, just go to Home Depot equivalent in India and DIY.Seriously. Why hadn't anyone thought about putting a lock on that door? So many people warn about opening it, so many followers spend their life cleaning up the mistakes of the visitors and nothing good comes from it. So lock it up, baby!Backing up, the movie's about a tragic loss of a child that leads the mother to a door she can speak to her ghost son. Only, like it's spelled out above, she isn't allowed to open the mystical door to the "other side." Would there be a movie if she didn't foolishly open it and chaos ensues for the remainder of the family until the returning ghost is busted?2016 is truly turning me around to my least subgenre of horror: ghost stories. Still not a fan, but after this very well shot movie and The Conjuring 2 that easily and triumphantly made up for not just The Conjuring 1, but many more of the same exact haunted house movies that's flooded the market for a decade now. Hollywood, you keep making intelligent and original ghost stories like these two and you'll finally earn my respect and dollars.Yes. I did like this movie. It's not perfect, though. It's got all the stereotypical ghost jump scares that stopped being scary in 2004…or even much before that. It's even got the corny, overlong egg-shaped mouth opening that never stops making me laugh – first seen for me in I Am Legend. And for only about 90 minutes, it seems longer than it should've been.But, the initial premise. Oh, dear God, the first premise. Not just original, well-acted and believable, but heartbreaking enough for any full-length movie. A mother of two is in a sinking car and has only one opportunity to save one of her children. This scenario alone brings this movie from just a haunted ghost story to an elevated and deep movie. That's the lead into the mother going to the ancient door to speak with her son – the one she had to sacrifice to save her daughter. Now, that premise, is also somewhat original, but it's also a double-edged sword: despite what she's been through, and who could ever put themselves into her shoes?, how dumb do you have to be to open a door that not only people warned you about, but also you believe enough to know this is about to get…terrible.The movie's worth watching. Mercifully it is around the hour and a half mark, so even though it drags in Act Two, it's quick enough to get all the better parts in.***Final thoughts: I hate seeing actors type-casted. I know a lot try their best to break from their mold and comfort-zone to avoid that, but even then, there are times I just simply can't get past their past. The lead here, Mother-May-I-Return-From-The-Dead?, is Sarah Wayne Callies. You may not recognize the name, but if you're a die-hard fan of The Walking Dead as I am, it might be as hard for you as it was for me to see her as anything but Rick Grimes' wife on the show. She does have depth, especially for the decision she had to make with her children, but dang it, she's just Lori Grimes to me.

Prison Break's Sarah Wayne Callies carries this British-Indian horror production with the same demeanour as her more familiar role; maternal enough to sell the film's major theme, yet strong enough to carry the entire feature. This, after all, is what Callies is tasked with, as the grieving mother she portrays invites her dead son's spirit back to the world of the living with inevitably chilling consequences.While the majority of studio horror nowadays is bound by so many stipulations - the jump scares, the teenage cast demographics - that ultimately render it generic, The Other Side of the Door benefits from a refreshing change of setting in its Indian locale. As a result, not only does the film look elegantly beautiful with its colours and scenery, but its plot also benefits from a less familiar cultural angle than most supernatural thrillers are afforded. The central menace here - a temple doorway through which the living can contact the dead - is so far removed from Western ideology and the recurring origins of its horror movie monsters that the film undeniably offers something that is at least different, if not completely new. The second act, where things go bump in the night as Maria questions the nature of the spirit she's allowed back into her home, is admittedly routine, but that's not the issue with modern horror; the issue is whether or not it can at least try to overcome this mundane narrative.This is where the screenplay's wider themes come in to sharper focus, as the audience encourages Maria to make the right choices while sympathising with her fragile state of mind. The horror isn't simply limited to creepy children and unseen entities, but also the lengths a parent is compelled to go to in order to be reunited with a lost child. It's most certainly enough to make the more pedestrian scares forgivable as you witness a family being torn further apart by their loss just as much they are the shadows that lurk around them.The Other Side of the Door won't terrify you any more than any other supernatural horror released this year, and that's because, by now, genre aficionados really have seen it all. What it will do, however, is linger with you much longer as you place yourselves in the shoes of an emotionally drained mother who, you understand, would do anything to see her son again.