This film promises alternate universe escapades from the very start. but several minutes into the film, you can quite readily tell this is not the kind of film that is prepared for all the sci-fi and mind-bending trauma that such a thing entails.
this film overcomes that sort of thing by remaining concise, focusing not on the alternate universe itself, nor lingering too much on how they end up getting there, but keeps tightly focused on the protagonists trying to get out of it.
along the way, Gary Cole appears as a teacher who inexplicably appears to be fully aware of the protagonists' ordeal and acts at times as an exasperated guide and other times a menacing sort of referee between the protagonists and the alternate universe people who are hostile to them.
While this is happening, the film is also focused on the "main" universe people the protagonists have left behind during a house party, dealing with the fact that two of their friends just disappeared in a secret closet, and now the cops have arrived, one of them having made the mistake of not bothering to check if there was drugs or underaged drinking occurring and now unable to get a warrant to enter the house and so is now squatting outside waiting to arrest any teen that tries to escape.
A lot of aspects of the "travelling" are unanswered, and it works best when it remains unanswered. Everything about it feels functional and meaningful in some way unexplained to us in such a way that it just works, and the mystery makes it more compelling.
At some point, however, the movie starts caving in to the pressures of storytelling, and starts to set things up in a more surreal and less sci-fi fashion. The "alternate" universe somehow ceases to be an alternate universe and becomes something more fitting for a morality fable, while some of the precise mechanisms of the "travel" are given some flimsy explanation with incoherent nonsense involving a playing card as a "passport".
None of that manages to completely derail the rest of the film, but it certainly fumbles a great shot at an alternate universe type film with the limitations of budget and location.
this film overcomes that sort of thing by remaining concise, focusing not on the alternate universe itself, nor lingering too much on how they end up getting there, but keeps tightly focused on the protagonists trying to get out of it.
along the way, Gary Cole appears as a teacher who inexplicably appears to be fully aware of the protagonists' ordeal and acts at times as an exasperated guide and other times a menacing sort of referee between the protagonists and the alternate universe people who are hostile to them.
While this is happening, the film is also focused on the "main" universe people the protagonists have left behind during a house party, dealing with the fact that two of their friends just disappeared in a secret closet, and now the cops have arrived, one of them having made the mistake of not bothering to check if there was drugs or underaged drinking occurring and now unable to get a warrant to enter the house and so is now squatting outside waiting to arrest any teen that tries to escape.
A lot of aspects of the "travelling" are unanswered, and it works best when it remains unanswered. Everything about it feels functional and meaningful in some way unexplained to us in such a way that it just works, and the mystery makes it more compelling.
At some point, however, the movie starts caving in to the pressures of storytelling, and starts to set things up in a more surreal and less sci-fi fashion. The "alternate" universe somehow ceases to be an alternate universe and becomes something more fitting for a morality fable, while some of the precise mechanisms of the "travel" are given some flimsy explanation with incoherent nonsense involving a playing card as a "passport".
None of that manages to completely derail the rest of the film, but it certainly fumbles a great shot at an alternate universe type film with the limitations of budget and location.