Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on March 4, 2016, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
What do an unproduced Darren Aronofsky film, a real-life cannibal sect and a badly injured creature performer have in common? They were all part of the creation of the new chiller The Other Side of the Door, as director Johannes Roberts explains in this exclusive FANGORIA interview.
Roberts and Ernest Riera scripted The Other Side of the Door, in which the lives of Maria (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Michael (Jeremy Sisto), an American married couple living in Mumbai, India, are shattered by the tragic death of their young son. Their local housekeeper offers the grief-stricken Maria the chance to speak with the boy one last time through a closed door within a temple in a nearby forest—and warns her not to open it under any circumstances. But in time-honored Monkey’s Paw/Pet Sematary tradition, the rules are ignored and Maria and Michael are soon beset by supernatural terror, embodied by a spirit called Myrtu (Javier Botet, the spindly actor from [REC] and recent Guillermo del Toro films). Other Side, which counts Alexandre Aja among its producers, is the first studio feature for the British-born Roberts, following a string of indie films including Forest of the Dead, The Expelled (a.k.a. F) and Storage 24.
What were the inspirations behind The Other Side of the Door?
I’m a massive Stephen King fan, and I adore Pet Sematary, so there’s very much that vibe in it. I had just been working with some Indian producers on Storage 24, and I’d gotten to thinking about that country and came across a village in the south of India called Bhangarh, which is apparently the most haunted place in the world. There are signs there saying you must not enter after sunset, because the dead walk about and it’s very dangerous. That just got my mind whirling. I’m very much into the Asian horrors, Ringu and Ju-on and all that, and I thought this would be an interesting way to explore horror in another world. So it all came together from there.
Did you wind up shooting in that actual village?
No, that just sort of provided the catalyst. We scouted all over India, actually, but we shot everything in Mumbai, which is a great place.
What actual Indian lore did you incorporate into the film?
Well, the Myrtu character is sort of an amalgamation of various things, but particularly Kali. And the religious sect, the Aghori, is actually more mental in real life. They really eat the flesh of the dead and cover themselves in the ashes of cremation. They’re pretty bonkers. My team and I did a lot of research into the local customs and religious; a lot of it is based on fact.
Can you recall any memorable incidents while working on the Indian locations?
I remember, it was actually on the very first day, Sarah had to do a costume change while we were in the middle of the jungle in 100-degree-plus heat, and someone just held up a sheet for Sarah to get changed behind, while a whole group of cows were walking past! It was insane; thank God she had a sense of humor, otherwise I would have been dead in the water. She got quite ill, though; at times you can see she lost a bit of weight.
One of the oddest things about where we shot, actually, is the whole Rudyard Kipling link. You know, The Jungle Book plays very strongly within the movie, and we burn it at one point—and purely by coincidence, the big house we used is the place where Kipling was born. The interior was a set, but the exterior, this amazing colonial building in the middle of Mumbai, this massive, crumbling place, was Rudyard Kipling’s birthplace. We didn’t choose it for that reason at all—I had no idea—and there I was burning copies of The Jungle Book outside of it. It was a very weird, creepy coincidence.
The whole shoot was just full of craziness. We had to come back about three or four months after finishing the shoot, because Javier Botet, who gave the most amazing creature performances in Mama and Crimson Peak, slipped over in a swimming pool while we were filming and shattered the entire side of his body, and had to have an insane amount of operations. He was in so much pain, it was unbelievable; they had to get him onto a stretcher, and he was almost literally in pieces; it was horrendous. So we had to go back and reshoot with him three months later—bolted together, poor chap. Very nice guy.
How did you make the jump from the independent world to this studio film?
It happened that one of the heads of Fox International was at Sitges when Storage 24 was playing, and saw the movie there. He called up my agent and said, “I liked Storage, what else has he got?” and my agent said, “He’s got this really interesting story set in India that he’s just written.” And it just so happened that the main people from Fox International had just left New Regency, where they had been trying to get together a movie called Song of Kali, based on a Dan Simmons book, with Darren Aronofsky directing. It had almost gotten done, but it fell through, and it was a ghostly story set in Calcutta. So it was a pure, sort of charmed, crazy situation; you know, what were the odds that they’d be looking for a ghost story in India just at the time I had written one? So that fell into place, and once we got into development, it came together very quickly.
So then the Fox people hooked you up with Alexandre Aja?
Yes; when they were at New Regency, they had done Mirrors with Alex, and then Alex had produced The Pyramid for them at Fox. They passed him the Other Side of the Door script, and he fell in love with it. He really got the Pet Sematary vibe, and came on board as one of the producers. We became very good friends, though he is just a pain-in-the-ass Frenchman; he would meddle in everything, and drive me up the wall! But he was great; he really helped take the movie up to the next level, to where it is now. I’m super-proud of the film, and I really owe him a lot for fighting battles and getting it to the place we wanted to get it to.
