Saturday, 14 May 2016

7th Dimension

British weird sci-fi horror THE 7th DIMENSION (2009) harks back to a time of subversive conspiracy theories of 1980s, filtered through surreal coincidences with a distinct Quatermass vibe. Students Zoe (Lucy Evans, Mayo, Rocket Man) and Sarah (Kelly Adams, Bronson, Holby City) visit a tutor’s flat, inadvertently meeting the computer hackers of ‘Beacon77’.  

Radical–atheist Declan (Jonathan Rhodes) is the amusingly prickly character who turns psycho, Malcolm (David Horton, Asylum Night) offers a voice of reason - but to no avail, and Kendra (Calita Rainford, Return To House On Haunted Hill) is an ‘assisted’ suicide case. Scurrilously indulgent anonymous Internet radio fills number-crunching break times, as our self-proclaimed hacker heroes crack Vatican security, to read bible code in the 4th dimension, scan torah pages, and hope to predict the future... any futures.  

Director Brad Watson might be the new Terry Gilliam, or John Carpenter. Weaving together manic dialogues and crazy genre notions, this recalls 12 Monkeys (without enough monkeys!), and Prince Of Darkness (sans gory zombies). Spectral visitors appear to be ‘remote viewer’ spies from a top secret Pentagon lab. Murder via mind–control is just one SF concept in the flurry of ‘pseudoscience’ gibberish that remains genuinely fascinating, and highly enjoyable. Despite this movie’s obviously low-budget production, it is imaginatively unrestrained with an instantly engaging sense of edginess and a fervently dramatic intensity.

As the miraculously-cured cripple’s consciousness uploads to a higher reality, and “the paper is burning” line refers back to destroying the sketch of metaphorical flatland, an apocalypse seems to face the surviving heroine. The 7th Dimension is heartily recommended to all fans of strange psychotronic movies!

 

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