4 Star

How to Create a Megalomaniac.

From first time feature writer Scott Blaszak comes a cracking piece of Sci-fi imagination of what would you do in their place. Parallel is directed by filmmaker from Mexico Isaac Ezban (The Incident, The Similars) who takes Blaszak’s story and turns it into a film about how one second you think you are between a rock and a hard place, and then suddenly you have the solution to rise and rise higher.

A house in the suburbs of Seattle has a very chequered past, as we see Marissa (Kathleen Quinlan, Apollo 13, The Doors) and Edward (Michael Kopsa, Apollo 18, Watchmen) in bed listening to music, when their German Shepard grumbles for his second diner. Marissa volunteers to do the deed, and she heads downstairs and feeds her pet. All normal enough until she steps on some broken glass, a broken picture. She bends down and picks it up, that is the moment she is grabbed from behind and a silenced pistol is pushed in her back. Needless to say it doesn’t end well for her until the shooter unmasks themselves.

Noel (Martin Wallström, Mr. Robot (TV Series), Ego) and Devin (Aml Ameen, Kidulthood. The Maze Runner) are at the high point of their vision, in bringing a solution to the parking problems in Seattle, and any big city worldwide. By giving it their new phone app, Meter Maid. They say it will take four to five weeks to get a working model. But the head of the investment company wants that by Thursday, because he has a man who can… Seth (Chad Krowchuk, Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice). How are they and their housemates Leena (Georgia King, Kill Your Friends, Austenland) and Josh (Mark O’Brien, Ready or Not, Arrival) going to do the impossible?

While moaning, brainstorming and drowning their sorrows at their local bar, their friend and barmaid Carmen (Alyssa Diaz, Red Dawn, Shark Night 3D) tells them of the myth of the house they are renting and the tale of the hermit woman who vanished from there. Back at home they are all in the washroom and things get heated as Devin suggests that he will get a regular job. This offends Noel and Josh says Devin always runs away from problems, just like he did with their old company ‘Betafire’. Josh gets frustrated at Devin’s lack of belief in their new venture and throws a wrench at the old company logo smashing it and sends it crashing to the floor. Leena, the sensible one thinking of the house deposit, picks up the shattered logo and she spots that the wrench has caused more damage than first thought. A hole has appeared in a false wall with a staircase behind it. All focus changes to this mystery staircase, the deposit forgotten and the wall dismantled they find themselves in the attic of the house, something the real estates had missed.

It is like any movie attic plenty of dust, but also a periscope that can see into every room of the house, oh and a tall mirror that is a portal into parallel universes of Seattle and beyond.

What would you do with a portal to a parallel universe? Well this is about what Noel, Devin, Josh and Leena do with a Portal to all the parallel universes.

Parallel is a great story, and hats off to writer Scott Blaszak for coming up with this story first time out. Each character has their own agenda, and Parallel takes us to their dreams and dark places, an Explosive idea.

Parallel is available on DVD, digital and Amazon Prime now.