Hostile Dimensions (2023)
Directed by: Graham Hughes
Written by: Graham Hughes
Starring: Annabelle Logan, Graham Hughes, Joma West, Paddy Kondracki
HOSTILE DIMENSIONS
Directed by Graham Hughes
Following the mysterious disappearance of a graffiti artist, Emily, two documentary makers find a doorway that lets them traverse alternate dimensions. It’s a world-changing discovery that challenges all that’s ever been known about reality. And if nothing else, it’s a sure-fire hit since almost nobody watched their previous flick about an indy teddy bear company struggling under capitalism. Teaming up with a new-age lecturer, Innes, they plunge into the multiverse to discover what the heck happened to her. It’s a simple premise combining found footage with high-concept sci-fi and offers many possibilities. As with Hughes’ last film, Death of a Vlogger, Hostile Dimensions’ main asset is his creativity. He’s not interested in telling a conventional story and does an admirable job building up a strange, beautiful multiverse on a shoestring budget. The locations range from horrific churches to a truly inspired sequence in a soft-play area going between the uncanny and the downright weird. Sequences like Sam and Ash sending a camera through the door on a remote-controlled car or Innes taking them to a land where whales fly reflect a playfulness on their creator’s part, and one can only imagine what he can achieve with more money behind him.
Because if there’s a fundamental problem, it’s that the film sometimes threatens to collapse under the weight of its ambition. The effects have a striking otherworldly quality, yet we don’t get to see the different dimensions or test the limits of the door. Likewise, a detour sequence supposedly taking place in Mexico widens the scope but falls flat because of what we can’t see. Obviously, these reflect the budgetary constraints, and the team does a commendable job with what they have. Frankly, it’d be unrealistic to expect the filmmakers to live up to the concept entirely – there’s a reason Marvel has spent (some would say squandered) a whole phase on it. Still, after seeing dildo hands and donut black holes in movies like Everything Everywhere, Hostile Dimensions isn’t going to wow you the same way.
You’ll still be invested, though – that I guarantee. As with Death of a Vlogger, Hostile Dimensions is helped immensely by the likeability of its cast – most whom appear in both films (a special mention to Logan, who has a near-contagious ability to sell any mood). The three leads bounce off each other brilliantly, playing it with the right mix of fear and curiosity that this sort of story needs – we need to want to know what’s behind the door but fear for those opening it. I also loved the villain, who we don’t meet until the third act. Still, there’s room for developing the themes. For instance, I applaud Hughes for raising various explanations for the doorway without really committing to one until the end. However, his musings on other possibilities pay lip service to topics like environmentalism and the subjectivity of human perception without saying much about them – granted, the former did make me think, ‘that’s cool.’ Similarly, the grief element is unbaked.
The multiverse offers characters an excellent vehicle for working out what is missing in their lives, ala The Midnight Library. However, these isolated scenes do too much too quickly, watching like they’re there to create personal stakes rather than them being interwoven through the whole story. It adds up to some key character moments that work as story beats but lack the dramatic weight to make them seem like more. Also, and I say this with some bias, it stretches credibility that a lecturer would reference Creepy Pasta and a subreddit rather than a nice, thick textbook or paper. Still, using old-style images to ground a potential explanation in ancient lore is well done, and I defy anyone not to enjoy hanging out with Sam, Ash, and him as they guide us through universes beyond our own. In a reality where you don’t watch this film, you’ve missed out.
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