From director Nathan Hope comes a suspenseful thriller with horror tendencies. Elsewhere stars Anna Kendrick (Twilight) and Tania Raymonde (Lost) and revolves around the search for a smalltown girl with big dreams. After playfully promoting her body on a website that looks suspiciously like MySpace, Jillian (Raymonde) decides to meet up with one of her “fans” and subsequently disappears. Her best friend Sarah (Kendrick) is sent a video message of Jillian screaming and decides to go find her. Jillian’s would be suitor joins Sarah and the drama unfolds step-by-step in a pretty interesting way. I’ve gotten use to horror films being all gore and nudity, but Elsewhere is old-school in its climactic use of suspense rather than theatrics.
I really enjoyed this movie. It was a little predictable but the acting is superb, something that is rarely exhibited in these types of movie in a CW world. This could easily have been a total “hot teens acting stupid” film, but it winds up as a pretty solid suspense film; particularly in the wake of movies like the Wrong Turn series and The Haunting of Molly Hartley. Extras include audio commentary from Nathan Hope (the director) and Vincent Palomino (the producer), a decent but not earth shaking making of style featurette, deleted scenes, and a photo gallery.
Overall this is a good film. It brings nothing new to Hollywood’s rich history but it is a testament to the fact that decent independent style films still exist. Again, the acting is great here and it really elevates the sometimes cliché plot.
Reviewed by Mark Fisher
