Hostile Dimensions is a twisted multiversal thriller indie film written, directed and produced by Graham Hughes.
This multiversal thriller is about two documentary filmmakers; Sam (Annabel Logan) and Ash (Joma West) who decide to investigate the disappearance of Emily (Josie Rogers); who is a grafitti artist. They end up going on an unexpectedly dangerous journey, after what they thought was a hoax.
Hostile Dimensions is also primarily a found-footage film, interestingly giving a first person perspective going through these ominous doors to different dimensions.
Found-footage also works well for this film considering the characters are mainly just two people trying to document events which may unfold, much like found-footage style films such as The Blair Witch Project (1999), REC (2007) and Cloverfield (2008) which explored this approach on lower budgets.
The tone of the film is a cross between it being scary, strange and sligtly comedic.
Annabel Logan and Joma West’s performances were in most of the film and I’ve found them to be mostly entertaining, there could be improvements made with directing how these actors delivered lines and how they react to scary or intense scenes. However, the actors did deliver decent on-screen chemistry of them being colleagues and friends.
Just like the characters in Hostile Dimensions, I was also eager to see what lies behind the doors in any of the scenes they go through. There are nightmare creatures lurking in these universes; different universes are comprised of dark, twisted, scary and somewhat wacky characters, it’s unfortunate that these are mostly fleeting glimpses though. It would have been great to see more of those horror universes.
Some of the story seems to lose focus, the sudden addition of a god, the decision to add chalk as a plot device also took me out of the film a little bit; as it added an unnecessarily confusing element to the story which came out of nowhere, while already trying to figure what was going on with the doors.
Although, the chalk scenes were somewhat interesting on their own, It would have been better just sticking with the door aspect instead of introducing another fantasy/sci-fi prop in the mix, in this 77-minute film.
In terms of CG compositions, there’s really only a few rough noticeable scenes where the composites have not been masked well, and a blurry outer glow which made the edit look tacky around doors. Although, there’s a smooth car scene transition which I was really impressed by near the beginning.
There are still other imaginative and entertaining multiverse scenes on what appears to be a very low budget film, including the beautiful composition with those elements placed in the sky.
Final thoughts
I liked the film overall, it does have its good moments and there are also plenty of opportunities where the film could have improved its potential. Hostile Dimensions would have benefited from being longer; adding more time to explore different dimensions/universes. Esprcially with leaning into the horror genre further, in which Graham Hughes seems to be strongest at writing from watching this
Often films with these titles and synopsis are far too ambitious when it comes to multiverse style films, yet end up rather limited likely due to writing and budget constraints for the most part. There seems to be effort to explore what they could under minimal budget.
Character development could have been better; this also impacts caring about one particular character’s decisions at the end, especially with not rushing the story surrounding Emily.
Official trailer for Hostile Dimensions
Hostile Dimensions is out now on digital platforms. Links about where to watch this film are available at the bottom of this article. (We may earn a commission when ordering through JustWatch, this helps us to fund our site).
Looking for other multiversal thriller films involving doors or mirrors? There is one that stands out to me which I would recommend that leads to the multiverse and that’s the 2018 film called Parallel. This is where a group of friends find a mirror in an attic and they use this to their advantage, however this quickly turns into a terrible situation.
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