Parallel

Aldis and his brother Edwin wrote a good thrilling/horror, science fiction movie. I don't get the bad rating IMDB has. Possibly not enough watched it and reviewed it.

The movie takes place with three individuals staying in a lake house. Aldis Hodge plays the husband (Alex), Danielle Deadwyler plays his wife (Vanessa) and Edwin Hodge plays the brother of Alex (Martel). Vanessa and Alex have recently experienced the death of their son and are staying in martel's lake house for vacation. Vanessa decides to take a stroll through the woods when she encounters a multiverse experience, where she sees herself. However, this version of herself tries to kill her. She then goes back to the house as she tries to make sense of it, as well as dealing with her husband trying to move on from their dead son and the possibility of selling their house to have a fresh start. You also didn't find out. Later on, you find out that the father of Alex and Martel was someone who delved in physics and multiverse possibilities but disappeared.

This movie really deserves a watch because there are small factors in it that you really cannot talk about without spoiling it. The suspense and thrills in this project did not disappoint. Danielle did an excellent job playing a confused, angry and grieving mother trying to survive this ordeal. The subtleties and the elements involved made for a great movie that didn't spoon feed you all the answers and did not have to spend a lot of money to do it. There was no CGI or any other kind of special effects needed to tell this story, which was really refreshing. The conversations and relationships that all three of them had were absolutely believable and relatable. From one conversation, you hear that there were experiments happening in a facility in the woods where people went missing and caused the shutdown of said facility. This leads to Danielle going back into the woods to try to find something that can help her make sense of what she experienced. Upon doing this is when the movie really picks up as she has lost her way and is now trying to find her way back home. This is where the movie has its most thrilling moments, because you never know who she's going to encounter and if she is ever going to find her way back. You also understood Danielle's ulterior motive from a grieving mother standpoint, as she was also trying to find a universe where her son was actually still alive. I like the fact that you were never bored and it kept an even pace throughout the entire film.

I wish I had seen this movie sooner. Definitely worth a watch and owning on 4K.

First, let's not kid ourselves, Danielle Deadwyler carries the movie. If the depth of this cloying wordy script was left to the Hodges brothers, it would be a puddle.

The budget is not a problem so much as the acting of 2/3 of the cast but then they wrote themselves a movie so they weren't going to cast capable actors. They probably shouldn't have cast Deadwyler though because she acts circles around them.

Unfortunately that's really not enough to save it. The over the top melodrama was already enough to bury the concept but they had so little confidence in the audience that they have to describe everything, every moral choice, every option and it gets terribly boring.

If you liked this, check out Coherence. It will blow your mind.

And, yes I'm going to tell right away - you can actually understand dialogue. Sound is clear, crisp and easily understood. No noise volume wars in this movie.

Cast is small, plot is simple, some things are a bit generic but it works. It's shot competently.

I'd wager this is a pretty small budget movie. But for what it does, it uses that budget smartly.

I don't like the cumulative score this movie has here. I don't understand it. It is not a bad movie. Yes, it's microbudgeted, small cast, not bombastic and the plot is pretty straightforward. Maybe people got bored during it, who knows.

In any case, I liked it.

Nothing new, with less cast than Coherence.

This movie was good, well shot, and all around good for the genre. I think I enjoyed it because despite it clearly being a multiple dimension film, if you removed that and only thought about it as a weekend getaway with a husband a wife and a friend trying to move past a traumatic event, and that everyone is using psychology to try and break through to each other, it also works.

The ending though was just a bit too cookie cutter for a happy ending that didn't need that very last scene. It would've been just as good with everyone moving on/accepting what had happened.

One let down was that a piece of string was somehow going to help them travel through dimensions in a repeatable fashion. Sure if she had only followed the string to follow him, I'd buy it. But the moment he came back to her and wrapping the string up, they had no way of guaranteeing which reality they'd emerge in.

Initially skeptical after seeing its unimpressive ratings, I reluctantly decided to watch this multiverse/time travel film after browsing through several user reviews. To my surprise, the movie captivated me with its unique, almost claustrophobic atmosphere, confined to a minimalistic setting with just three characters. Despite its apparent simplicity and limited scope, the film impressively explores its concept, pushing the boundaries of its narrative constraints.

It maintains a delicate balance between innovation and budget constraints, and I found myself wondering if its success was a stroke of luck or a testament to clever filmmaking. Unlike many avant-garde films that tend to meander and conclude on an unsatisfying note, this one managed to weave depth and intrigue throughout, compelling me to invest emotionally in all three protagonists-and their various iterations.

Given the complexity and the slow-burn nature of its storytelling, this movie might not resonate with everyone. It demands the right mood and moment-perhaps catching you in the perfect universe on the perfect evening, as it did with me. That night, I felt rewarded for my patience and was glad to see a film that didn't squander its potential. The industry's standard might hover around mediocrity, but this film stands out, deserving of much more than its initial 4.9 rating. Ultimately, I found myself struggling between 6 and 7 stars, but decided for a 7, appreciative of the heart, thoughts and risk invested by its creators, which set it apart from the pack. In a landscape where genuine innovation is rare, this film is a noteworthy exception.