Elsewhere DVD Review
Elsewhere DVD Review
No 'saints' here.
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Elsewhere tries to thrust itself forth as an edgy, spooky teen thriller / horror movie with a supernatural twist. It's not.
Usually, that would annoy me — I get fed up with marketing misdirection — but in the case of Elsewhere, I was taken in pretty quickly by the above-par acting and the extremely wistful, moody, color-saturated cinematography. In a few seemingly negligible scenes, particularly an exposition-y one set in a quiet library, the actors become believably intense and the DP takes the time to compose and light even the green desk lamps so artfully. (Which makes sense, since writer/director Nathan Hope was/is a cinematographer and did a great job on The Fog remake. The DP on Elsewhere is Mike Karasick; a man with few credits, obviously getting a break here.)
To be honest, the story is nothing special: Small town teenage girls (Twilight's Anna Kendrick as sweet Sarah, and Lost's Tania Raymonde as jaded sexpot Jillian) run afoul of an online predator and the stalking commences. One of them disappears, and the other risks life and limb to find her "best friend".
Nothing new here. But up until a little over halfway through, it's a pretty good mystery and even once you know whodunit, Elsewhere still manages to keep the pace up. What's more, I actually liked our erstwhile "Nancy and Ned" — Sarah, and her guy-pal Jasper (Chuck Carter). The actresses cast as the mothers of missing girls (Kinna McInroe, and Shannon Holt) both give strong, poignant performances.
Most of the puzzle is over the identity of "Mr. X" (oh yes, they did! That's two demerits for Mr. Hope) — is it the, er, ex-boyfriend? The current squeeze? The crazy lady? The crazy Bible-thumper? It could be anyone / everyone who is holding our hostage "elsewhere". After all, the missing girl wasn't exactly a pillars of society (She went online! She smoked! She had sex!).
As I said, Elsewhere is nothing special in the originality department but it's not as bad or quite as generic as you might think, judging from the crappy cover art and cast and crew of unknowns. It's on par with something like the Eight Films to Die For and many of the direct-to-disc Dimension Extreme offerings. It is certainly better than most Lifetime Channel movies and the slew of Lionsgate sludge. Perhaps that doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement, but I did actually enjoy Elsewhere as a time-wasting suspenser that's pretty to look at (especially on Blu-ray) and boasts some admirable character performances. (But it is not a horror movie.)
Special Features
Audio commentary with director Nathan Hope and producer Vincent Palomino
The Road to Elsewhere featurette
Deleted scenes
Photo gallery
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson