An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at 2016’s The Other Side of the Door
After the loss of her child, a woman heads to a sacred temple to speak to him one last time but instead unleashes an evil that goes after her family.
Is it Scary?
Nah, almost all jump scares are cheap, meaning it’s not story, atmosphere, or tension that make you jump, instead it’s the loud sudden musical sting. As for the other scares they’re nothing that will leave you trembling.
Unless you’re planning on spending your night at an old abandoned sacred temple, you won’t be scared and even then, you have other problems.
Detailed Plot:
The movie opens in Mumbai, India. Married couple Michael and Maria (played by Jeremy Sisto and Sarah Wayne Callies respectively) are at a small café where Maria reveals she’s pregnant. We next see them on a beach celebrating and deciding to live in Mumbai to raise their family since they travel there often for work.
A soccer ball rolls over to Michael and he gives it to back to a young girl. He jokingly asks her if she thinks he and Maria should stay in Mumbai. Feels like a lot of pressure to put on a stranger but the girl rises to the occasion when she starts to scream. Her face distorts and black goo seeps from her eyes. This is also a the movie’s first jump scare.
Turns out that was just a nightmare as Maria wakes up in bed and it’s now 6 years later. She looks over to the peacefully sleeping Michael and she starts beat the shit out of him for sleeping like there’s nothing wrong. He wakes up and embraces her, telling her it’s okay. Something tells me something really bad happened recently.
We pan over to a family picture on their dresser and see they have two kids; a daughter and son. Title screen time!
The next morning at breakfast, their daughter Lucy (played by Sofia Rosinsky) and their dog Winston join them. We also see their live-in nanny Piki (played by Suchitra Pillai) join them as well. Importantly we don’t see their son anywhere. Although we don’t know yet what happened to him, we can guess he passed away recently.
That night Michael returns home and finds an asleep Maria with the television on playing home videos of their son, Oliver (played by Logan Creran) learning the piano.
Michael cries and turns off the television. He then kisses Maria’s head, whispering that they’ll “get through this.” Unfortunately, Maria had other plans as an empty bottle of pills falls out of her hands. Michael sees them and realizes that Maria is not asleep but has overdosed.
Random but not so unrelated question, has anyone ever seen the show Prison Break?
We next see the Michael and Maria in an ambulance racing to a hospital. As Maria slips in and out of consciousness we see what happened to Oliver in a flashback. Sometime prior to the movie, there was an accident with the family’s car ending up in the river with Maria in the front seat and Lucy and Oliver in the backseat.
The impact left Lucy unconscious and Oliver’s leg pinned between his seat and the front seat. As the car fills with water, Maria realizes she can’t get Oliver’s leg free and tells him to pull as she tries to wake Lucy up. With no other choice Maria has to leave Oliver behind in order to ensure she can get Lucy out.
Reaching the surface, she’s helped out of the water by some onlookers but they stop her from trying to dive back in for Oliver. Others dive in but since Oliver hasn’t appeared in the movie, pretty sure they weren’t able to save him.
Back in the present Maria wakes up in the hospital and Piki emerges from the shadows.
Piki reveals to Maria that she once had a daughter who tragically drowned at a young age. She then offers her a way to talk to Oliver one last time and to say goodbye.
Near the village where Piki is from, there is an abandoned temple deep within a forest. The land where the temple was built upon is known as a thin place, a location where the line between the living and the dead is at it’s thinnest.
All Maria has to do is spread the ashes of her son on the temple steps and then wait, locked, inside the temple. At night Oliver will return but will be on the other side of the front door where Maria can talk to Oliver one last time.
The following day Maria agrees to do it but Piki makes her promise only one thing; whatever she does, she cannot open the door. So she’s going to open that door, I guarantee it.
That night Maria and Piki, along with some men who I guess know Piki and are okay with digging up child bodies, dig up Oliver’s body. Maria sees Oliver’s favorite stuff animal that he was buried with, Khan the Tiger, and caresses it. There’s a jump scare when she pulls on it and Oliver’s decomposed arm slips out of the casket.
The group cremate Oliver’s body and Maria spots several members of the Aghori tribe watching them nearby. Piki tells Maria the Aghori live near cremation sites in order to get ashes to use in their rituals which allows them to speak with the dead.
The following day Maria boards a train to the village and gets a ride to the outskirts of the forest. The logistics of all of this I can only assume Piki handled. After this along with having a group willing to dig up a child at her disposal, I can only assume she runs some secret underground crime syndicate.
Maria also leaves behind a note to Michael telling him she’ll be gone for a couple of days to clear her head. I guess saying “I’ll be gone for a few days to contact our dead son and say goodbye without giving you a chance to do the same.” just didn’t seem right?
After some time, Maria arrives at the temple and completely disregards all the dead trees and dead animals surrounding the temple. At night she spreads the ashes and locks herself in the temple waiting patiently for Oliver.
Later, Maria hears sounds coming from deeper in the temple and goes to investigate. There’s a quick jump scare when crows fly out of somewhere causing Maria to scream. She then looks down and sees a dead crow decompose at a rapid rate at the foot of a statue.
The front door starts to shake and we hear multiple voices emanating from it, almost as if hundreds of souls are trying to escape. Everything goes quiet and Maria hears Oliver crying from the other side.
She runs to the door, comforts Oliver from the other side, and apologizes for leaving him behind. Oliver tells her it’s okay and it wasn’t her fault. He then tries to open the door but Maria tells him he can’t. Suddenly Oliver says he has to go but Maria begs him to stay for a few more minutes. His voice then disappears.
Panicking, Maria opens the door.
Maria calls out to Oliver and gets no response. Realizing he’s gone she says she loves him and turns to leave but, in a jump scare, an Aghori appears behind her causing her to run. He doesn’t do or say anything but he’s clearly judging her for breaking the one simple rule.
Inside the temple we see a statue start to break apart as we hear screeching echoing throughout the halls.
Meanwhile at the house, Winston begins to bark at the door and when Michael checks, thinking it may be Maria returning, there’s no one there. So definitely ghosts. The following day as Lucy plays with her toys, she hears something falling in a nearby room. Looking outside her door, she sees Khan sitting at the foot of the steps leading to Oliver’s room.
After grabbing Khan, Lucy hears Oliver’s door open and goes to investigate. We don’t find out what she sees as we cut to Maria arriving at the home, seemingly revitalized.
After greeting Lucy and Piki, Maria apologizes to Michael and assures him she’s back. To further drive home the point that she’s received closure and is back, that night she initiates sex with Michael.
Later, Michael and Maria are awoken by Winston’s barking and Maria sees that Winston is barking at something near the bed. Not seeing anything she takes Winston outside and stops by Lucy’s room to kiss her goodnight.
Turning off her lights she thinks she sees something in the shadows but doesn’t see anything when turning them back on. Back in her room, Maria sees Winston staring up towards her, crying.
The following day Maria finds Lucy playing in Oliver’s room and hears her talking to someone. When she asks her who she was talking to, Lucy says she was only talking to her dolls. Bullshit. Maria sends Lucy downstairs and cleans up the toys, putting them into a nearby toy chest.
Before Maria can leave, the toy chest tips over spilling the toys the floor including several alphabet blocks that spell out “OLIVR”. Kid can’t spell his own name.
After failing to recreate the unusual coincidence, Maria heads downstairs where Lucy is playing the piano. Maria enters and sees Khan sitting atop the piano. She asks Lucy where she got it from but Lucy tells her she has a secret.
Lucy plays the first few notes of a song and then we, and a shocked Maria, see the next few notes are played by an unseen force… AKA a ghost. Lucy tells her mom that Oliver has returned.
That night Maria washes Khan and tucks Lucy into bed. Lucy tells Maria that Oliver is hiding from someone and asks if Maria can keep Oliver’s return a secret, even from Michael. Maria agrees. You know what they say, communication in a marriage is the least important thing.
Maria brings Khan upstairs to Oliver’s room and places him on the bed. A book falls off the nearby book shelf and when Maria picks it up, the lights turn on as a chair slides across the room to the bed. Maria realizes Oliver wants her to read him a bedtime story and she couldn’t be happier to do so.
That night Maria awakes finding Khan in the bed between her and Michael. She hears a child call out ‘hello’ from somewhere in the room. Thinking it’s Oliver, she calls out to him but the voice laughs. We then hear the same screeching from the temple, now with added croaking, and see a figure appears at the foot of the bed.
Maria wakes up and we see that it was just a dream.
The following day as Piki is preparing breakfast, she sees the leaves on the plants are all dead. At that moment the gardener comes in and brings Piki outside showing her that the leaves to all the surrounding trees are also dead.
He then brings her to the pond where she sees the fish are all dead as well. Pretty much everything in a nearby radius is dead or dying, except for people for some reason.
Lucy screams from inside the home and Piki runs back in. Turns out she screamed bloody murder because their two parakeets, Chill and Bill, are dead. Lucy asks Maria if they can bury them in the sea and Maria agrees.
At a port, Lucy dumps the parakeets into the ocean. She then asks Maria who the man pointing at them is and we see one of the Aghori standing on some rocks on the other side of the port. Maria tells Lucy not to worry since he’s far away but Lucy tells her she was asking about the other man.
Maria turns around just as another of the Aghori spreads ash on her forehead. Also jump scare probably the most effectively set up in the movie so far.
Maria and Lucy run off and head toward their home but when they reach the town, the road is blocked by an accident. Maria goes to investigate and sees a dead body on the street. In a jump scare the head jerks towards Maria and she runs. Probably the worst set up jump scare, you could see it coming a mile away.
Pretty sure it the whole scene was a hallucination since no one else around the body reacted to it moving. But, it was clearly a scene made for a cheap jump scare so we don’t need to look into it.
That night as a storm rages outside, Lucy is watching television with Winston when he begins crying. Although Lucy can’t see him, Winston and, we the audience, do see Oliver getting closer to Lucy as the hall is illuminated by lightning strikes.
Later while Maria gives Lucy a bath, she sees a bite mark on her shoulder. When asking what happened, Lucy says she doesn’t like Oliver anymore since he’s mean. Is Oliver a zombie or a ghost, the movie shrugs it’s shoulders at this question.
Maria heads to Oliver’s room and confronts him, telling him he can’t hurt Lucy. Technically she confronts an empty room since she thinks he’s a ghost that can bite. Oliver aggressively pushes the chair across the room and throws the book on the ground.
Maria tells him she’ll read to him if he promises to not hurt Lucy again. Although he doesn’t answer, Maria takes the lights turning on as confirmation.
Some time later Maria wakes up to the sounds of someone playing the piano very poorly. She goes downstairs to check and finds a ripped up Khan on the floor. Before she can clean it, there’s pounding at the door and Maria opens it seeing one of the Aghori chanting standing several feet away.
She tells him to go away but he points to something next to her. She turns and sees Myrtu, the gatekeeper of the underworld (played by Javier Botet) and what the statue at the temple depicted.
Maria falls backwards onto the ground and starts crawling away but Myrtu follows closely behind. When Maria looks back Myrtu is gone and so are the Aghori. Running back inside, Maria finds Piki there waiting to reprimand her.
Piki tells her by opening the door Maria has upset the balance of life and death and now Myrtu is there to take Oliver back. She also warns her that since Oliver returned, his soul could not be purified and will now start to putrefy, turning him evil. The only way to stop it now is to destroy and burn everything that once belonged to Oliver including pictures and videos.
Naturally Maria refuses and heads upstairs to her room. There, she finds Lucy crying on the bed facing away from her. When she asks what happened, the real Lucy appears from behind Maria and says she just woke up.
So who the fuck is the Lucy on the bed?
Maria jumps back but when she looks again, Nightmare-Fuel Lucy is gone.
The following day at a café, Maria tries to convince Michael to go on a family trip to the United States. Because once you hide and lie about your trip to an ancient temple to speak to your dead child, hiding that the gatekeeper of death is haunting you, is no big deal.
Maria starts to see roaches all over the walls and the food but these are hallucinations and is able to hold it together. She calls for Lucy and the two realize she is missing. Michael heads out the front to search for her while Maria heads through the back where she sees Lucy running into an alleyway.
Maria runs down the alleyway and, in a surprise everyone but Maria saw coming, it wasn’t Lucy but actually Myrtu.
Before Myrtu reaches her, Michael appears with Lucy and Myrtu disappears because Gatekeepers to the Underworld don’t like witnesses.
Meanwhile back at the house, Piki has collected all of Oliver’s belongings and place them in trash bags outside. She then goes into the shed to grab gasoline but is locked inside by Oliver while Winston cries and scratches at the door.
Piki yells at Oliver to stop and he unlocks the door as we hear him laugh. Piki takes the gasoline and pours it on the trash bags but before she can light it with matches, she hears her daughter’s voice calling out to her.
We see Piki’s daughter appear from a nearby pond but when we cut to her again, we see it’s actually Oliver masking his voice to sound like her. Piki approaches the pond and sees a red ribbon resembling one her daughter used to wear. She reaches for it and we cut to a little while later with the family arriving home.
The three question why all of Oliver’s belongings are outside but we know that Maria definitely knows what’s up. But, in order for Michael to stay in the dark, Maria says she’s not sure. Maria then sees Piki’s sandal by the pond and when getting closer sees Piki dead in the water.
That night, after putting Lucy to bed, Maria realizes she fucked up, finishes pouring gasoline on Oliver’s belongings, and lights it on fire.
We see a quick scene of Michael driving home and while at a light, a man knocks on his window asking for food. When Michael looks, the man’s face is distorted but when he looks again it’s back to normal. So another scene added just for the purpose of a cheap jump scare.
Back at the house, Maria is watching all of Oliver’s stuff burn as Myrtu watches behind her. This was something I didn’t catch my first viewing and surprised me my second viewing, especially since this movie has a habit of accompanying every scare with loud acoustic stingers.
Inside the house, Winston starts frantically barking and Maria runs in to find Lucy missing. Checking in Oliver’s room, she sees Lucy outside on the swings being creepy. Maria rushes outside and Lucy tells her she just wanted to feel the wind on her skin…weird.
As she brings her inside, Michael arrives and, as he embraces Lucy, he sees all of Oliver’s stuff burning. He rushes over with Lucy followed by Maria who is trying to explain the situation. Maria blurts out that Oliver came back and killed Piki. Honestly it was the worst possible time to do this.
The very confused Michael obviously doesn’t believe her and Maria turns to Lucy asking her to confirm. Lucy gives her a blank look and says she has no idea what she’s talking about. So pretty clear signs that Lucy ain’t Lucy anymore and is now possessed by Oliver, dubbed Lucy-O
Maria hasn’t caught on and continues to ask Lucy-O to tell Michael about Oliver but Lucy-O plays dumb. Michael yells that it’s enough and brings Lucy-O inside to put her to bed. In the room, Maria once again asks Lucy-O to tell the truth but when Michael has his back turned, Maria realizes Oliver possessed Lucy.
Maria grabs Lucy-O and tells him to leave his sister alone. Lucy-O cries out claiming they’re scared causing Michael to push Maria away. He grabs Lucy-O and locks Maria in the room, telling her that he’s is going to get her the help she needs.
Michael tries to leave the house with Lucy-O but sees the Aghori have surrounded the house. Back inside, Michael leaves Lucy-O in the kitchen and goes back to the living room to call the police. While he’s on the phone, Winston goes into the kitchen and starts barking at Lucy-O who grabs a knife in response.
Michael hears Winston crying and runs to the kitchen finding Lucy-O stabbing Winston. Lucy-O tells Michael she only did it because Winston was being naughty and needed to teach him a lesson. Lucy-O then stabs Michael in the stomach and reveals he is actually Oliver.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Maria is able to pull the door open and heads downstairs followed closely by the Aghori. Arriving downstairs, Maria hears Lucy-O scream upstairs and she rushes into Oliver’s room, finding the Aghori pinning Lucy-O down in a ritual circle.
Maria tries to stop them but one of the Aghori blow dust into her face that disorients her. Another of the Aghori grabs a knife and the group begin chanting as he approaches Lucy-O. We then see Myrtu manifest on the stairs and head towards the ritual.
Just as the Aghori is about to stab Lucy-O, Michael appears and grabs his arm pulling him back. The two fight while Maria rushes over to Lucy-O and tells Oliver to leave Lucy alone and possess her instead. Oliver tells her he is afraid to go back but Maria reassures him she’ll be with him and he’ll be safe. Oliver agrees and possesses Maria.
Now possessed, Maria turns to the Aghori and is able to tell them to kill her instead. As two members hold Michael back, another stabs Maria-O. Maria-O drops to the ground and awakens in the afterlife where Myrtu arrives, grabs her, and reveals her face.
In the real world, Maria-O dies as Lucy and Michael looks on, unable to help. Maria then wakes up at the temple hearing Michael calling out to her. She realizes he is trying to reach out to her like she did with Oliver.
The film ends with Michael saying he needs to see her and Maria yelling at him to stop as we hear the door unlock.
What Happened in the End?
Although the Aghori appear to be the main villains they are actually helping Myrtu rebalance life and death. Since Oliver’s soul had been so corrupted it was able to possess Lucy. This meant the only way for Myrtu to rebalance was to sacrifice the possessed Lucy which would also get rid of Oliver. I would think this would cause another imbalance as Lucy is innocent but what do I know.
The movie also doesn’t specify what the plan was to rebalance life and death had Oliver not possessed someone. Were they going to burn everything belonging to Oliver like Piki suggested? It didn’t seem that way. Maybe, at that point, a sacrifice was the only way. These questions are never close to being answered.
At the very end of the movie, after Maria is killed, she reawakens at the temple because Michael is now trying to reach out to her. It’s not clear how Michael knows about the temple or if he actually opens the door. It’s a cliffhanger ending meant to never be answered.
Review:
It took me a while to figure out why exactly I didn’t like The Other Side of the Door because the story concept is good but something is off. Sure it has cheap scares and questionable character choices but that usually doesn’t always make a bad movie.
After watching it twice I realized there is no real protagonist. The closest you get to a protagonist is Piki but she’s killed off and barely in the film. While Maria is the main character, she’s more like the antagonist, everything bad that happens from the start is her fault.
Her wanting to talk to her son again due to her guilt is her driving force but that’s over within the first 20 minutes. She’s warned about the dangers and sees Lucy injured by the ghost yet still does nothing. She also chooses to keep her actions a secret which makes things worse.
She wouldn’t even be considered a tragic hero since she shows no remorse until the last 20 minutes and she never has a conflict of morality. Character-wise she has two story arcs, getting over her guilt for Oliver’s death and then a sort of redemption arc. The problem is, both of these arcs only last 20 minutes each and they bookend the movie. In-between this, there’s no character movement during the rest of the movie.
The movie and the concept had a lot of potential but it felt like it took the easy way out in order to make just ‘a movie’. When the movie ended I just felt “empty” about it, like it did the bare minimum.
On the positive side, the acting was well-done, dialogue was slightly better than okay, and Myrtu’s design was simple yet effective. Personally I didn’t like The Other Side of the Door but it was mainly due to the ‘no real protagonist’ issue, others might not care about this therefore I would only recommend the movie if you have nothing else to watch.
Cast IMDB