Elsewhere

In today's world horror directors can either ignore technology, find a way to render it useless or embrace it.  You get films where the protagonist's cellphone either runs out of battery or is out of range or where there is no Internet access or television signal and others in which characters are in constant communication with one another and can find out what is going on through the Internet and flicking through the many channels on TV.
 
Elsewhere is in the latter category, exploring the dangers of putting too many of your details on the 'net and using chatroom and cellular communication.  In the small town of Goshen, Indiana, friends Sarah and Jillian work in a diner and have been best friends for years. They are similar but very different, both come from broken homes and are tech-savvy but Jillian is much more egregious and damaged, living in a trailer with a mother who hates her while Sarah is very well off and loved by her mother who nevertheless spends days away from home on business.
 

 
Jillian hates her name and has a 'live for the day' attitude, putting scantily dressed photos of herself on a MySpace-type website under the username 'durtygrrl'.  Following a party held by the town hunk, Billy, a tipsy Sarah sees Jillian having an altercation with someone in a dark alley; she looks away for a moment and, when she turns back, Jillian is gone.
 
Getting nothing from Jillian's mother, a fat slovenly woman who lives on disability, smokes medicinal marijuana and sells herbal breast enlargement pills over the phone, Sarah tries the police (there only appears to be one cop in Goshen, and he's one of Jillian's sexual conquests) to no avail so embarks on a one-woman mission to find her friend.  
 
It turns out that Jillian's best friend knows less about her than anyone else in Goshen and when she tries out geeky Jasper, who works at the library and has a crush on her, Sarah discovers that even he knows about her online activities and is even one of her 'friends'.  When Sarah receives a text showing the inside of a bus and some evidence of a violent struggle, she sends Jillian another text asking where she is and if she is alright.  One of the replies is signed by Jillian, which is odd because of her contempt of the name and Jasper decodes the message (I'm not exactly sure how) to reveal that it actually says 'help me'. 
 

 
Written and directed by Nathan Hope, who has previously made his living as a cinematographer, Elsewhere isn't the most ambitious of debut films, using many genre conventions and characters.  It certainly looks very good and the cooperation of the small town is evident with good location shooting and effective atmospheric shots of the cornfields around Goshen.  It falls down a little in the narrative with too many clichés and plot holes but Hope does assemble a fine selection of red herrings for you to peruse before you guess what has happened to Jillian and who is responsible. 
 
The casting is interesting because there are two members of the Lost cast who are both linked to Benjamin Linus - Tania Raymonde, who plays Jillian, is Linus's daughter and John Gries, who plays Mr. Tod, features as Linus's father. The acting is pretty good, with most of the cast acquitting themselves well, but Elsewhere, just as every film does, lives or dies by the script which is weak. 

The Disc

 
Extra Features
The commentary with Nathan Hope and producer Vincent Palomino is a reasonable listen as they talk about casting, locations, the history of Goshen and what it was like shooting on a budget. 
 
"The Road to Elsewhere" is a perfunctory making of, with brief interviews with some of the cast and some B-roll footage.  There are also several deleted scenes and a photo gallery so nothing to get the pulse racing.
 

 
The Picture
Though he wasn't the DP on the film, Elsewhere bears the hallmarks of someone who has spent their working life looking for the right angles and lighting levels so it's a very well shot movie.  The transfer is clear and sharp with good contrast so even the darkest of low light scenes have decent definition.  Colours and flesh tones are also up to scratch so the film at least looks good.
 
The Sound
With a choice of DD 5.1 Surround or 2.0 Stereo, the former is really the only way to go for a film like this unless it's mixed badly or the dialogue is indistinct.  This is not the case so, though I sampled the stereo the track after - it's clear and does what you'd expect - the 5.1 is perfectly clear and uses the rears effectively for the jump scenes, which generally occur when Sarah is dreaming and clues come to her in flashes.
 
The English HoH subtitles are clear and well written, but I'm in no position to comment on the Spanish ones!
 

 
Final Thoughts
Elsewhere is a reasonably effective and involving thriller but you really have to suspend disbelief as the characters are exaggerated almost to the point of caricature and the dialogue is occasionally horrible.  It's one of those films where someone disappears, you know something bad has happened to them and you just need to work out who is responsible amongst the line-up of likely candidates.  I enjoyed the film for what it was but was frustrated at just how badly written it was.  Should you have the necessary equipment, it is also available on Region A Blu-ray Disc (I really hate region coding and see absolutely no point in it whatsoever - the rear of the case even has it as Regional All!).