The Other Side Of The Door [Blu-Ray] 
Director: Johannes Roberts
Cast: Sarah Wayne Callies, Jeremy Sisto, Sofia Rosinsky
Release Date: Now Available on Blu-ray & DVD
A Review By: Kevin Lovell
Film Rating: 5.5/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10
Synopsis:
In this chilling supernatural story from cowriter-director Johannes Roberts, a family’s idyllic life abroad turns to tragedy — then terror. After her young son dies in an accident, a grieving mother (Sarah Wayne Callies) learns of a ritual that will bring him back for a final goodbye. When she travels to an ancient temple to undertake the ritual, she discovers a door that serves as a portal to the afterworld. But when she ignores a warning not to open the door, the balance between life and death is upset. Now, an unspeakable horror is unleashed that threatens the lives of everyone she loves.
‘The Other Side of the Door’ tells the story of a family that was living a wonderfully fulfilling life in a beautiful country until their young son was killed in a tragic accident. Unable to truly move on from the loss, after their nanny informs Maria (Callies) of a place where she can speak to her son one final time and say an actual farewell, she immediately makes the trek and discovers to her surprise that after following the provided instructions, her son does indeed return one final time. Unfortunately Maria also chooses to ignore the most crucial rule she was provided, not to open the door under any circumstances, and in doing so she unleashes an evil that includes the spirit of her son which returns home and becomes crueler every day, seemingly intent on reinserting himself into the lives of his mother, father and young sister no matter what the cost to them may be.
Directed by Johannes Roberts (Storage 24) who also co-wrote the film with Ernest Riera, Roberts does a competent job at the helm of ‘The Other Side of the Door’ and guides the film along with a fitting sense of building dread and unease. It includes a few familiar faces combined with some lesser known individuals making up the relatively minimal cast such as Sarah Wayne Callies (TV’s The Walking Dead & Prison Break), Jeremy Sisto (TV’s Suburgatory & Wicked City) and young newcomer Sofia Rosinsky along with a few others, each of whom deliver capable performances at the very least in their respective roles.
‘The Other Side of the Door’ is a decent horror film that delivers some creepy and chill inducing moments, along with a gorgeous setting and an intriguing story along with it, not to mention a capable cast. While it’s certainly entertaining and capable of its notable moments, it also fails to deliver anything truly fantastic or original to the table, forsaking any potential for a worthwhile story and development for generally simplistic and tired cheap scares, some failing even at that and coming off as a bit silly which clearly wasn’t the intention. Even with its faults, ‘The Other Side of the Door’ is a fairly entertaining and enjoyable horror film that is easily superior to a large percentage of the tired and downright horrid entries we are so often privy to these days and it should entertain many genre fans as long as they don’t approach with high expectations, yet it’s also not one I would urge you to rush out and grab a copy of immediately by any means.
Overall, ‘The Other Side of the Door’ is an entertaining and occasionally quite creepy horror film, yet it also fails to reach the level of anything truly exceptional (or even quite good for that matter) and falls into the tedious and all too familiar pattern of attempting goofy and tired cheap scares which it fails at quite often, while to its credit also succeeding on occasion. Capably shot and featuring a fairly solid cast, ‘The Other Side of the Door’ isn’t a genre film that I would recommend rushing to check out, more one that might be worth a watch on cable during a random lazy evening.
VIDEO:
The Blu-ray release of ‘The Other Side of the Door’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the film’s original 2.39:1 Cinemascope Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks great as a whole, delivering a consistently sharp, clean and detailed presentation that holds up impressively even during the numerous darkly lit sequences and never results in anything occurring on screen to become negatively affected, let alone rendered indiscernible. Overall, this is a top notch high definition video presentation that should easily satisfy.
AUDIO:
The Blu-ray release features a lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This lossless multichannel soundtrack provides a generally clean and sharp audio presentation with a few aggressive moments. Utilizing all five available channels in order to surround the viewer with the music in addition to some added auditory effects for the jump scares and crowd activity plus more, while never causing any dialogue which may be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or rendered inaudible. Overall, this is a highly competent 5.1 channel DTS-HD MA soundtrack that delivers in every way required of it.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The Blu-ray release of ‘The Other Side of the Door’ includes a few extra goodies. Included on the release are a number of ‘Deleted Scenes’ from the film (running approximately 8 minutes in length altogether), in addition to a brief behind the scenes Featurette ‘Behind the Door: The Other Side of the Door’ (running approximately 2 minutes), and a still ‘Gallery’. The ‘Theatrical Trailer’ (approximately 2 minutes) is also included.
*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.
Film Rating: 5.5/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10
‘The Other Side of the Door’ is Now Available on Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD & Digital HD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
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