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.

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

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.