The Other Side of the Mirror (2016) User Reviews

Low budget re imagination of a famous story that fails at everything.

[ropipgi-581-487166 · 2/10 · 4 June 2016]

With the tag-line " The darker side of the mirror " i had some hopes of this movie. With a really good original story about the break between childhood and growing up, i hoped that this was some kind of dark sequel like what we have with the wizard of Oz. Instead what we get is what i assume is the local cos-player/ civil war re-enactment/ steam-punk group trying their hardest to act without any kind of budget.

As Director,writer,producer and editor 95% of the blame fall on Zach Hamer - the rest goes to whomever decided to have loud license free music play the whole time during the movie!

A small tip to Zach here - when you introduce a character ( bad, good or mysterious ) ,let them do something that makes us care ( bad , good or mysterious ). This was 2 hours of characters we had absolutely no interest in. To see what i mean, watch the Tim Burton Alice movie again and watch what all new characters do within the first two minutes of screen time.

A small tip to anyone thinking about watching this movie: get the game Alice: Madness Returns on steam instead. Better story and characters you care about. ( also much darker mature story, so nothing for the weak of heart. )

The worst crap I have ever seen, with the most annoying music that won't stop

[edwardajahnke · 1/10 · 28 May 2016]

This movie, if you want to call it one, is the worst remake of Alice in Wonderland. The dialogue is the worst ever, with the fact that music is constantly playing without stopping. Whoever even wrote this had no imagination, and whoever directed this just cannot direct. The story line was stupid, the props were home made, and the acting was so bad that the Kardashians act better just lying on their backs... This movie doesn't even deserve a star in any way shape or form, nor does it need to be out for public viewing. This movie kind of reminds of someone going through a bad trip and trying to watch fairy tales and having nightmares later on during the night.

Terrible

[croachster · 1/10 · 24 May 2016]

Literally the worst acting I've ever seen in my life. This is an amateur B movie and the acting is awful by even those standards. Anyone involved with making or "acting" in this "film" should find a new line of work. It's current 3.0 rating is waaaaay too high. I've neve3r been more outraged by something for wasting my time in such a way. You can't find any kind of entertainment value in it being so bad like with sharknado because it takes itself too seriously despite sucking so bad. If I ever see anything like this ever again I may lose all hope for humanity for producing something so dreadfully abysmally bad. Anyone involved should be blacklisted from every producing anything that could ever be viewed by anyone for the rest of time.

Hogg-pogg cluster fu<<

[rozenott · 1/10 · 17 March 2018]

I'm willing, no matter how hard, to overlook absolutely inexcusable setting flaws when it's on the grounds of 100% unavoidable. (Example: The power lines, lines painted on the roads, modern street lights, the delivery box for The Oregonian.) Hell, I'll even overlook the costume fail of having everyone else in cloths that are circa 1990s when you've set the time to be 1905.

From the image on the cover I am looking forward to seeing a movie about a girl traversing the darker side of... Anything but what I got. I was thinking like high school, popularity, peer pressure, hell I'd have even been happy with a pure goth live action version of the original. HOWEVER, what was delivered was a movie that spent more than half its time as a full color silent movie with the most GOD AWFUL back ground music. This stuff is worse than elevator music!! Whoever made this call needs to have their head examined. The ONLY brake from the racket was the, too often unintelligible, borderline psychotic monologues almost everyone EXCEPT Alice seemed to have. Splashed with the occasional clip of actual Alice lines, which were spoken with zero emotion, or feeling. It was like some cheap version of Sucker Punch, meets Matrix in an Alice in Wonderland costume. DID NOT WORK!! There was no flow, other than the progressive decay of Alice's dress. Only two actors where readily identifiable as their role. Knowing the real story of Alice did nothing to help a person navigate this horse's load of... AND while we're on the topic of horses!! WHAT THE HELL?! A random horse just walks up to the set, sniffs around the table, the actors just stop and watch it, then when it runs off they go back to the scene like nothing happened and SOME HOW, this blooper (which serves ZERO purpose) was left in!! NO!!! This movie was a complete waste of time, I feel sorry for EVERYONE involved in this movie. I'm from the Pacific North West myself, I know for a fact that this could have been done SSSOOOO much better. We have so many cool props and people willing to help just for the fun of it. There is no reason, why so many of these easily rectifiable errors were left in here.

All that's being said, I get that this is supposed to be some type of drug awareness movie. IT FAILS! A. Alice in Wonderland should NEVER be used to convey that type of material as children could accidentally see it. Especially with that cover art. To a child it basically says, "Oh look Alice did drugs I can to!" While I'm a firm believer in 'hands on parenting' stuff like this makes that job even harder! B. You didn't convey anything about drugs other than almost everyone in this movie did them to some existent. Whether it's Alice taking am unknown pill from a complete stranger, or the old man shooting up in the barn, there are drugs EVERYWHERE in this movie. It's absurd.

The only thing that saved this movie from a zero was the Edger Allen Poe guy who seemed to be playing three different roles. He successfully creeped me out as the cat, made me hate him as the white rabbit, and wished there was am under current of romance that could have held the story along but there was nothing.

what the ...

[digdog-785-717538 · 5/10 · 27 May 2016]

I can't believe people would honestly believe this to be a major film production, but, apparently, they do.

The Other Side Of The Mirror is a fan film, made with very little budget and semi-professional actors; it is, if you will, a college-level production. And for what it is, it's pretty solid.

The story follows the original Alice In Wonderland, replacing the fantasy characters with human counterparts - for example, the Smoking Caterpillar is now a stoner dude. There's some weird stuff going on, but it doesn't scare me. It's reasonably creative and far, far from horrible. I would actually suggest this film to anyone who is studying filmmaking.

A honest vote of 5/10. If you don't understand what you're watching, then you shouldn't be watching this.

I would need drugs to watch this all the way through

[kevmcvann · 1/10 · 29 May 2016]

As a Avid Movie Lover both UK Hollywood & Foreign I'm sad to say this is the Second Worse movie I've ever Seen Try as I could I forced myself up to just over Half way before i had to Quit, Time I will never get back. Scenes where Alice is just walking 3 times too long as if trying to fill time with padding... No it's Boring ..I have watched many low Budget movies that not only were well done with great cast ,with sets that did'nt look cheesy good Scripts and good Editing ,It felt to me as if I was watching a Play by the Luton Amateur Dramatic society ..rather than the same but a West End production I'm sure everyone put a great deal of Work into it ..but it did'nt Work fo ME sorry

It is what it is..

[Scantzen · 4/10 · 25 July 2020]

As a Wonderland fan I am interested in different interpretations. This one is painful in many ways but still somehow interesting.

Bizarre movie

[superkawiichan · 5/10 · 13 May 2021]

During The Whole movie couldn't tell which was real or fake. I felt like I was tripping or on LSD the whole time my mood went from (very interesting , Um what the, hahahah pls kill me. The ending was funny.

very annoying soundtrack

[john_s-69182 · 1/10 · 21 May 2016]

the primary problem is the overly loud, annoying and terrible music soundtrack, which is so loud compared to the actors voices that I gave up watching this after 10 minutes, it was giving me a migraine, the script must have been written by a 7 year old child or a total moronic imbecile. Save your money don't rent or buy this piece of total rubbish wait for the new Disney version of Alice and go see that one instead. I just cannot believe anyone invested to produce this monstrosity it most certainly will not make any money. I usually enjoy watching the copy-cat movies that precede the big studio releases and in a few cases enjoyed some of them much more than the big budget productions, but this one left me thoroughly disappointed.

All darkness and ineptitude, no wonder or magic

[TheLittleSongbird · 1/10 · 7 August 2018]

Regardless of it being low budget and it looking pretty cheap, still saw 'The Other Side of the Mirror' anyway being a fantasy and film fan, loving to death the story of 'Alice in Wonderland' for as long as can be remembered and being intrigued by the concept of turning a popular story on its head, giving it a darker edge.

'The Other Side of the Mirror' does nothing with its potential and is a terrible film in every way in its own right. That 'The Other Side of the Mirror' is a source material abortion is the least of its problems for a film not intended to be a straight up adaptation. It's just depressing to see a story with lots of colour and magic and deliciously eccentric characters stripped of all of that and looking and sounding amateurish in all senses on top of that. Definitely among the worst of my recent film viewings and quite far down on a personal least favourites list.

Its problems are numerous and redeeming qualities are none and it is hard to know where to start with the criticism. 'The Other Side of the Mirror' looks really cheap for starters, with settings and colours that look more dreary and drab than vibrant and inviting. The effects look like they were constructed as an afterthought and like badly out of date video game quality. The photography and editing are haphazard at best, while the direction shows no flair, sense of drama or making the story make sense, it's barely there.

One of its biggest problems is the music score, which has been panned for very good reason. One of the most annoying and tonally and placement inappropriate music scores there is, and one that is balanced so poorly with the dialogue and actor's voices. Being constantly intrusive, really unappealing to the ears and completely at odds with what's happening. It takes me a lot to feel nauseous, get a headache or feel my ears and teeth go on edge listening to a music score, the one here did all of those things and to intolerable effect.

Script and story are also major debits. The script is incredibly childish and lacking in cohesion, when one can actually hear it, and never entertains, intrigues or provokes thought. The story has no sense of wonder or magic and takes an overly serious approach to the story while having cheesy and unintentionally funny moments galore. It's also very sluggishly paced, never comes to life and is rather aimless, almost plot-less in many places.

Characters are completely stripped of anything to make them memorable, no distinct personality traits to set them apart or make one interested or engaged by them. One would be hard pressed to find a blander Alice. The acting all round is awful and barely rehearsed, nobody has enthusiasm or subtlety with many lumbering and others chewing the scenery to pieces that it gets exhausting. The character interaction is random and dull, like the cast were picked off the street and that the filming was where they had seen each for the first time.

Summarising, dreadful in every way imaginable. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Solid Fanfiction

[raymondogreat · 8/10 · 22 May 2016]

This "Film" a low budget production Fanfiction, with throughout solid acting performance, simple setting and decent chosen scenery. The movie doesn't shine with fancy special effects or action-loaded scenes, but captures nice landscapes, unusual places, and excites the imagination of a "screwy" Wonderland. The acting of the "mad" hatter, and the Caterpillar in his "opium" den, gave me a good chuckle.

However, this Fanfiction is not flawless, it can be viewed as dull, incoherent and may not entertain everyone, but given the fact of its limited resources and capabilities in screening, the cutting and setting were done exceptionally. A good cast with some promising actors, Selena Tibert as Alice, made an adorable role-play.

So, how to rate a "Movie" which is loosely based on a best seller novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

Well, based on the criteria of a self-made Fanfiction, that contains fantastic costumes, a decent narrative and good cast, I rate this Movie with 8 out 10 stars, despite having deficits in screening and resources.

Well i liked it

[pennellbri · 6/10 · 1 March 2022]

It was kina weird and hard to understand what was going on half the time but that was the point. We are supposed to feel confused and lost as we journy with Alice through her bad trip. It delvs deep into the drug issue that is still a plague to society as ordianry people who are hurting inside and dealing with trauma just try to reach a better place.

Not even good for background noise.

[wingthwong · 1/10 · 30 August 2018]

Why doesn't IMDB have a negative number. Sharknado is at 0 in my books, but this is exponentially worse. Whoever thought that putting this out there to the public, needs a reality check. The scenery, the wardrobe, the hair styles, well pretty much everything is put together like a preschool church play. The is beyond low budget. They didn't even try. A silent film would have been better than the lack of intelligent dialogue. But, then you would still hear that driven to insanity continuing horrid soundtrack. This feels like the work of millenials expecting to get paid for participating or just showing up to work. Their is no love in this, no feeling in this, no sense of pride. You could have tried. I watched this as far as 3/4 and knew my brain was going to suffer from lack of intelligent input, but I kept on with the torture. Watching paint dry as a comparison cheapens the idea of watching paint dry. There's more value in watching worthless late night infomercials on public channels geared at the elderly with too much time on their hands. I don't even think the cheapest and worst designed camera should have been used to capture this mess. This is like a 20 year old design student turning in a drawing of a stick figure man of a three year old using a million dollar design program. I believe more thought went into the first word of my review than the entirety of this trash. A meth head in the final stages of life could have done better. That anyone gave this better than one star is beyond me. And don't say it was good for the fans. This was a travesty to anything remotely related to anything Alice or the fan base.

Pure Torture

[nikkijohnson-82861 · 1/10 · 19 March 2019]

I held on for over 20 minutes, giving it chance after painful chance, gritting my teeth and praying for it to redeem itself. Sadly, it didn't. My dogs could do better. There wasn't the slightest preparation or respect for the craft. This seemed more the product of a bunch of stoned teenagers who think they're really deep and enlightened than it did any real filmmakers. The acting was flippant, lazy, and just bad. (If you're gonna play a Catholic and draw attention to that fact, learn how to cross yourself without looking like a claymation character.) I could go on all day, and I barely followed her down the hole. For the love of all things Alice, don't do it.

(Update: It's been a couple of years now, and I came across this title on Tubi. I instantly remembered just how gag-worthy the entire thing was and decided to come leave a review having completely forgotten I'd left one the first time. It's simply that revolting...for me to actually feel the need, years later, to warn the general public about 20 of the worst cinematic moments of my life. As a writer, I've only given a handful of one-star reviews, always looking for some redeeming qualities in the artistic work of others. I almost wonder if they went out of their way to make it as terrible as they possibly could; some crazy Yoko Ono performance art crapfest. Just don't...)

It might be better on the other side of the mirror...

[paul_haakonsen · 1/10 · 17 September 2016]

Sometimes you just should take heed to the warnings from a very low rating of a movie here on IMDb or anywhere else for that matter. Despite the low rating that this 2016 "The Other Side of the Mirror" movie had managed to score, I still gave it a chance. Who knows, it might just be something that I liked even though many others didn't.

Turned out that I was wrong. I managed to get about 15 or 20 minutes into the movie, but I had to give up out of sheer and utter boredom. Nothing had happened for that entire time frame. And the movie was just cluttered with some very annoying piano music which was so overwhelming that it took precedence over the movie itself. It was so difficult to concentrate on the movie with that constant piano music blasting away at you.

As for the special effects in "The Other Side of the Mirror", well I can only guess, because I didn't see anything in what little I managed to watch of this movie.

The acting, well I assume that it as to be expected from a movie such as this. From what little I saw of the movie, before I threw the towel in the ring, was nothing impressive, much less anything noteworthy.

"The Other Side of the Mirror" is without a doubt not a movie that I will give a second chance. So I will never know the full contents of this movie, nor will I know how it ends. But bear in mind that sometimes you do yourself a favor and heed the low ratings of a movie, and save yourself the wasting of time, money and effort.

It is very rare that I actually give up on a movie, no matter how poor it is. But that was not the case with "The Other Side of the Mirror".

I guess the other side of the mirror would be preferable, especially if it tunes out the constant and annoying piano music.

there's 25minutes of my life wasted...

[titanskruven · 1/10 · 3 October 2016]

This movie, if you could even call it a movie, was the most worst movie i ever seen. Or the worst movie I started to see, because I stopped after 25minutes. I cant even pick out some scenes that where really bad, because they where all so terrible that I don't know where to start. Why even bother to make something so bad? The actors doesn't seems to follow any script, I think they made up what to say as the movie went along. I don't think there where any script at all. If there was, the actors didn't follow it. It must have been embarrassing for the so called actors, when they sat down whit their friends and saw the the finished movie. But this movie is of course a fake movie, trying to cash in some bucks when people thought this was the follow up on Alice in wonderland. As long as they cashed in at least 5000$ I think they break even. But why do "we" all fall for this every time? You hear about a great movie, and then you see a short trailer when you strike a glance at the TV. And when something similar comes out a few months, you think; yes, this is the movie from the trailer I saw... But it isn't! And you figure that out after the first dialogue between two horrible actors in the beginning of the movie. And then you force your self to watch, because you rented the movie and wants to get something back from the money you spent. But after a half hour, you didn't just lose a couple of bucks for the movie rental... you also loose half an hour of your life that you wont get back! And after the fact, you promise your self to not fall for this anymore. You got a smartphone and it takes 15seconds to check if the movie is the real movie, and still I don't do it?

Another similar situation that happened to me and my wife. we bought pizza, candy and rented a movie to cozy evening... The movie for the our evening together was the new "Jack the giant slayer". But of course I rented "Jack the giant killer"... It took us 30minutes to realize that something was really wrong... I should be illegal to release fake movies that trick people in to hire bogus movies instead for the real movie. But after this movie I wont fall for it anymore!

a movie with potential, not good, but the people that worked on it have a ton of potential.

[apolothanatos · 2/10 · 24 May 2016]

the story follows the story of Alice going through a twisted version of wonderland....without any actual wonder, i don't know the budget this movie had, but i have seen movies with really low budget pull of amazing things, if this is the first appearance of most of these actors i can see it as a stepping stone to grow bigger and better, but its still a pretty mediocre movie, with the hatter being the only one with actual character development, leaving Alice....as she started, having her adventure through Wonderland men nothing for the character, or change nothing at all on her character, to the cast i say: don't let a bad review of the movie stop you, keep going and keep growing. and to the people planing to watch the movie i say :......you might want to rethink what you want to watch.

Terrible

[stormwolfstone-84103 · 1/10 · 24 April 2017]

I usually give a fair shake to movies that may have low budget or have cast I don't recognize etc. However, after 30 minutes of terrible music in the background and horrendous acting I couldn't continue. I tend to love the variances of tales like Alice but this movie just had me cringing with the lack of emotive acting. They had no connection to the story, it felt more like it was forced in all areas.

Someone must have done this as a joke surely!

[antonialoveridge · 1/10 · 21 January 2020]

# Acting god awful. # Cinematography must have been done by a child. # Audio makes me glad I am hard of hearing.

Worst thing I have ever watched, I am now scared for life and I ligitumaley only managed first 10 minutes.

Horrible

[dwarfbunny-35265 · 1/10 · 4 December 2018]

Honestly I actually watched it all the way through and this is horrible... my former high school's drama class would do a better production of this. And there are drugs EVERYWHERE in this movie. Even where there doesn't need to be any drugs. It's just really bad acting. Saying this was strange would be an insult to the actual strangeness of the original Alice in Wonderland Novel.

New aspect of the movie if you have an open mind <3

[hanaellis · 10/10 · 1 August 2021]

Although there are a lot of bad reviews on this movie I definitely love the refreshing scenes and theme. Gives it a realistic look from the original story line. People see it as dull and dark all the way through, but this is just how life seems to be sometimes. Its called the Darker Side of The Mirror, and it gives that! Alice's curiosity and boredom is very relatable. Her innocence from the foreign actions around her, I find amusing <3.

If you like plays, this movie gives you that feel. It's shows you what plays want you to see. Don't think an Alice in Wonderland play with colors and magic, think of it as a a whole different story line.

A underrated Masterpiece

[jupitersnuds · 7/10 · 22 January 2022]

I know this film may seem mediocre and a bit slow but I assure that it is worth watching to the end.

I think the reason the ratings are so low is because nearly everyone was expecting a dreamy fairy-tale.

This movie is dark, disturbing and more closely aligned with reality.

Reality is no fairy tale and even if this were a fairy tale, all fairy tales have a dark disturbing quality to them I loved this movie for it's simplicity and honesty.

It may not be a mainstream movie but it is artistic masterpiece in its own right.

Give this movie a chance and please don't listen to these negative reviews.

Awful. Sound worse than student project

[katlynch-59619 · 1/10 · 24 November 2018]

It is like something I would watch with a GCSE class pointing out what not to do. Sound is abismal. Can't hear monologues for the elevator music. No real tension or atmosphere created by it.

Some beautiful landscape shots at the start. After that it got 15 more minutes before we decided it was agonising and turned it off.

Gutted. The concept has a lot of potential.

You've Reimagined In The Wrong Neighbourhood

[daniel-mannouch · 5/10 · 10 June 2019]

The Other Side of the Mirror or The Darker Side of The Mirror, i don't know, at first glance seems to just be about a bunch of cosplay dweebs putting on a show. Then, when you stick with it, you come to appreciate it as an admirable failure.

There is on display here creativity and a nuanced understanding of its period setting. However, the cinematography feels cheap, due to the lack of proper composition and the many tight frames that always give away a film's budget. I link this to the extremely negative critical response that is evident online to this film. If it had a bigger budget, I think more people would be willing to defend it. As The Other Side of The Mirror stands, it's ambition clearly doesn't match its resources and the result is something that feels very amateur, exactly because it has ambition and passion.

The Other Side of the Mirror, apart from it's frugal camerawork, has other issues going against it which is it's tonally unbalanced acting and uninspired soundtrack, further adding to the whole cheap feel of the production. Though, throughout the film are moments where the elements do actually come together and an atmosphere is obtained. As this film is obviously trying to tell it's story in that ethereal kind of way, trying to decipher when and when not this film stops being good is like performing some kind of alchemy, or like detecting radiation without a geiger counter. The film engages and disengages, arbitrarily, both due to and in spite of it's low budget.

I can't really give you a straight answer as to whether this film is good or not. It's cheap i can give you that, confusing, boring, but at other times, it's beautiful, impressive and a little magical. But, The Other Side of The Mirror is too much of a mess for me to recommend anything but a curious and cautious trial run.

Very bad adaptation

[uffewaldero · 1/10 · 25 June 2022]

This is a loose adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. As an Alice fan, I was curious about this movie. I suggest you just skip it waste of time. There's really no meaning with this movie. Waste of time.