The Other Side

After his graduation in Business from Columbia, Samuel North (Nathan Mobley) returns to his hometown in Athens County to meet his beloved fiancée Hanna Thompson (Jaimie Alexander). Sam calls Hanna, who work as waitress at the Montana's and he schedules the encounter "in their place" nearby a waterfall. Hanna never arrives and Sam is killed by the driver of a van and sent to Hell. However, there is a breach and many lost souls escape from the Pit including Sam back to the world of the living. While they are chased by the hunters from the hell called Reapers, who can switch bodies when they are killed and are called Switchers and leaded by the powerful Changeling, Sam finds that Hanna is missing and he is the prime suspect. Sam is helped by the former thief Oz (Poncho Hodges) and the former adulterer Mally (Cory Rouse) from the other side that believe they can find redemption helping Sam, and by his friend and policeman Peter (Stephen Caudill) and discovers the identity and the motives of the assassin.

"The Other Side" is a great supernatural story disclosed in a fast-pace and lots of humor. This low-budget movie has a great development of the plot and characters, using the principles of faith, redemption, sin, heaven and hell and excellent performances of the unknown cast. If it is true that Gregg Bishop made this movie with only US$ 15,000.00, I would like to give additional congratulations for this lesson to Hollywood with one of the best indie movies ever. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Anjos da Morte" ("Angels of the Death")

Don't expect a masterpiece. Please. The Other Side is entertaining, semi-original, and for the most part, well acted. Some of the scenes could have been removed, some of the actors could have been replaced, but honestly, with such a low budget, the crew/cast did a great job. The main character especially was well done. His relationship with his girlfriend was portrayed well in some parts but came off a little cheesy in others. Most other low budget horror movies are based around sex scenes/nudity and gore which detracts from the plot a great deal. The Other Side does not indulge in this cliché and is, in this reviewers opinion, a breath of fresh air in a stale genre.

Competently produced but uninspired indie that has inexplicably garnered some fantastic write-ups. This is basically a SciFi channel picture original except it doesn't want to make you kick anybody in the face but so what? The filmmakers basically made a Jesus-flick type movie so if you watch this thinking it's going to be "Hell's Escapees vs Demon Bounty Hunters" and non-stop action with sh*t blowing up, you're gonna be hella disappointed; they basically shove that into the back ground after the first half hour and the movie turns into a Lifetime Network "women's mystery" that will try your patience something awful. This up there with Joe Caranhan's BLOOD, GUTS, BULLETS & OCTANE as one of the inexplicable Park City hits that makes you worry about all the thin air up there that's turning everybody into mush-headed idiots. If you end up renting this, just prepare to be underwhelmed. SKIP IT.

I am writing this from the viewpoint that this movie was made for $15,000 not from the perspective that it was made for a Hollywood Blockbuster budget. For that budget, this is probably the best movie I have ever seen. Normally, I would have expected this would have cost about $200,000 to make.

As for the movie, it begins as a manic mess. The cuts are mostly just a blur. Some of them are on screen long enough to actually see. Some aren't. I am not a fan of cuts of less than 2 seconds. The brain cannot comprehend and remember anything shorter so it is a waste of film. A lot of film time was wasted with too-short cuts.

The story comes together after all the short cuts, slowly. After about 30 minutes, you finally have some idea of what the film is about. I prefer having some backstory up front. Yeah, it is old-school-routine but it was routine for a reason, and that reason has not gone away: To involve the viewer. Without it, some people will just hit stop and walk away wondering what they wasted the time and blacklist the writer/producer/director. Not a good thing.

To the good side, the cinematography was good. Lighting and sound were good. This is Hollywood quality production for cheap. Good job. Just the story is a little wonky but we can live through that. Somewhat like Chain Reaction, it is a big chase movie with a small mystery plot to hold the scenes together. And they tip the ending way too early.

The most interesting and original idea is that there is a back door to hell and people can get out. Interesting, if there were such a place.

The worst part of this movie and many others is that the dialog is too soft and the music is too loud. In the theaters, it is probably illegally loud. At home, it means constantly jacking the sound up and down. Really annoying. -1 star for extreme dynamic range.

Summary: Worth a watch. Exceptional for the budget!!

I love scary films, I was lucky enough to see a pre release showing of this one. I loved almost everything about it, the special effects look amazing and very high budget, the gore is absolutely amazing and the plot is gripping and clever.

The only down side for me was that there was too much of a focus on religion. Not everyone is a Christian, and I don't think that you can appeal to a mass audience with such an emphasis on it. Other than that it was perfect. The acting is great, especially from the leading man, and the cop is really hot.

I'm delighted that this will be shown at Sundance, I think we can probably expect to see amazing things from this Director.