Other
In the case of "Other" there's just not enough meat on the bone resulting in a wash, rinse, repeat story structure and a baby that was thrown out with the bath water.
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There’s not much to recommend about “Other” (available on Shudder beginning Friday, Oct. 17) beyond the inclusion of Veruca Salt’s cool 1990s indie rock tune “Seether” and the fact that leading lady and former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko parades around in her underpants for much of the feature.
Alice (Kurylenko) is summoned back to her childhood home in Minnesota (with Belgium doubling) after the death of her estranged mother Elena (played in her 40s by Anne-Pascale Clairembourg and in her 60s by Jacqueline Ghaye).
Weird things are afoot at Elena’s abode. It’s a smart home with security out the yin yang and yet Elena’s corpse was found out in the surrounding woods with its face eaten off. Woodland critters are also turning up on the grounds having received similar treatment. Alice wants to return home ASAFP, but her car keys have gone missing and the police may want her stick around pending autopsy results. She’s stuck like Chuck.
Alice spends her time at Elena’s home going down memory lane – some of it’s good (she lovingly sniffs the letterman jacket her high school sweetheart gifted her and reads from her diary); a lot of it is not (there’s a vast collection of VHS tapes chronicling the physical and verbal abuse she suffered at her mother’s hands and mouth preparing for teenage beauty pageants).
“Other” is written and directed by French horror filmmaker David Moreau (probably best known for “Them” (2006), “The Eye” and “MadS”) and it’s yet another tale of terror concerning generational trauma. For the most part this is a one-woman show featuring the very game Kurylenko and I admire her dedication to the performance, but this story would’ve worked better as a short as opposed to a feature. There’s just not enough meat on the bone resulting in a wash, rinse, repeat story structure and a baby that was thrown out with the bath water.