Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Graham Hughes
Starring: Graham Hughes, Stephen Beavis, Annabel Logan, Joma West, Andy Stewart
It didn't take long for Hollywood to ruin the idea of a multiverse. Both
Marvel and DC cynically employed the concept of multiple realities to bring
characters back from the dead in a desperate attempt to hold onto their
dwindling audience. Oscar winner (???)
Everything Everywhere All at Once
turned multiverses into a source for the most nails on chalkboard
"wackiness" imaginable. Apple TV series Dark Matter at least
took the concept seriously, but failed to do anything particularly
interesting with a story stretched to nine episodes when it could easily
have fit in a single two-hour movie. As is usually the case, it will
probably be up to indie filmmakers to explore the multiverse concept with
imagination, invention and insight, but most are probably turned off by its
reliance on expensive special effects to recreate alternate worlds.
Not so Scottish writer/director Graham Hughes, who with
Hostile Dimensions has made a multiverse thriller on a budget
that probably wouldn't cover Jamie Lee Curtis's lunch bill. As with his
previous film, Death of a Vlogger, Hughes once again employs a found footage conceit, which cleverly covers
up the need to visualise other worlds - every time the protagonists glimpse
something off in the corner of the screen they flee before we're given
enough time to examine whether the effects hold up.
The movie opens with some found footage within this found footage story.
Graffiti artists/urban explorers Emily (Josie Rogers) and Brian
(Hughes) are checking out an abandoned building when they find a door
standing freely in the middle of a room. Wandering off, Brian hears Emily
screaming. Returning to the room he finds the door has been opened, but with
no sign of Emily. Peering through the door's frame he's greeted with the
monstrous sight of some demonic face, before quickly legging it.
Coming across the footage, struggling documentarians Sam (Annabel Logan) and Ash (Joma West) decide to make the disappearance of Emily the
subject of their next film. They track down Brian, who is now a nervous
wreck, and get their hands on the door, which they install in the front room
of their flat. Plucking up the courage, they open the door and find that it
is indeed a portal to alternate dimensions. With the aid of a nerdy college
professor (Paddy Kondracki), Sam and Ash begin exploring these many worlds
in an attempt to track down Emily.
Hughes has two great assets on his side - his unflappable determination to
pull this off despite a limited budget, and the wonderfully diverse terrain
offered by Scotland. The former is so infectious that it goes a long way to
helping you overlook some of the film's obvious flaws, like its am-dram
performances and sub-SyFy channel CG. The latter affords Hughes access to a
mix of abandoned urban environments and the stunning surrounds of the
Scottish countryside, much of which boasts such an ethereal quality that you
can buy it as representative of a world other than our own. Despite their
obvious lack of experience, the cast have an enthusiasm that sucks you in.
Hughes comes up with some genuinely clever and often disturbing ideas here.
He's clearly given more thought to this concept than the screenwriters of
most of the Hollywood projects that have employed it.
Where Hostile Dimensions falls down is ironically not in the
FX or visual departments, as you might expect, but in its writing. The
characters never quite feel real, often reacting to terrifying and bizarre
scenarios in far too casual a manner. A subplot regarding Sam's grief over
the recent loss of her mother is handled with such a lack of depth that it
simply gets in the way whenever it's brought up. The comedy doesn't always
gel with the horror, and there's a little too much of the former and not
enough of the latter. There are moments when the balance strikes
wonderfully, like a brief glimpse of an alternate world where foxes hunt
humans while clad in riding gear. Such moments make you wish Hughes had the
resources to expand on his ideas. We've seen plenty of filmmakers remake
their early films with bigger budgets, and I'd like to see Hughes get the
chance to take a second shot at this idea with a substantial budget and more
professional actors. Maybe there's an alternate world where he's doing so
right now.
Hostile Dimensions is on UK/ROI
VOD from August 26th.
