Horror movie set in India
The Walking Dead and Prison Break actress Sarah Wayne Callies brings another yet indelible impression in the upcoming hair-raising horror movie The Other Side
of the Door, where she plays Maria, an inconsolable mother who lost her son in a tragic accident.
Set in mystical India and based on Indian folklore, The Other Side of the Door follows a family who lives an idyllic existence abroad until a tragic accident takes the life of their young son. Maria, the mother, learns of an ancient ritual that will bring him back to say a final goodbye. She travels to an ancient temple, where a door serves as a mysterious portal between two worlds. However, when she disobeys a sacred warning about never opening that door, she upsets the balance between life and death.
Writer-director Johannes Roberts had been exploring the concept of a spirit that lived on the other side of a foreboding door. Roberts learned of an abandoned Indian village, Bhangarh, which was rumored to have a haunted temple that warned visitors it was illegal to enter at night. That notion immediately struck a chord with the filmmaker.
It was important that the film’s central character, Maria, be strong and likable. She represents the idealized version of the American middle-class woman who has everything, including a devoted husband and two children.
“Sarah brings a real intensity to the character of Maria,” says Roberts. “I really understood her fragility — the cracks in her armor. As the story unfolds, the cracks get bigger and bigger, and I could feel Maria trying to pull her world around her together. Sarah conveys that, beautifully. She also brings a real confidence and delicacy to the role. The movie rests on her shoulders, and she really ran with it.”
The Other Side of the Door is a story about a family and about a woman who crosses the line from grief to madness,” says Callies. “I have never played a character that revolved so completely around loss and the inability to heal. Until that tragedy, Maria had always walked between raindrops. She’d been so fortunate, and then in the space of an hour it all changes.”
To tap into the intense range of emotions required for the role, Callies kept a book of sonnets about grief in her trailer. “Grief is a non-linear emotion,” she says. “I’ve been stunned at how fresh grief can be and how much regret and loss can still be buried under the surface.”
Maria begins to lose touch with rationality and turns towards unconventional and ultimately horrific measures to deal with her loss. “When the supernatural is the only solution in her life, Maria decides to try it,” says Riera. “She thinks the supernatural is superior to any of her previous coping mechanisms and will change her life forever.”
“By exploring these supernatural elements, Maria is opening a Pandora’s box she cannot close,” adds Callies.
The Other Side of the Door opens in cinemas on Feb. 24 from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.