Lost in Terra Dimension (2022) Review
Sisters Spacle (Kat Lehto, Fabulous and Fabulouser, Men in Suits) and Zeandra (Lizelle Gutierrez, Bloodsucka Jones vs. The Creeping Death, Infiltration) are lost in Terra Dimension. That’s where the evil Dom-X (John Moamar, The Last Ship, Where the Bears Are) imprisoned them after kidnapping them from Earth.
Now they need to find each other and the hidden Key that will let them escape back to Earth. They’ll have help from the Z Fairies and their leader Telda ( Zoey Grayce, George Anton’s Romeo and Juliet, Womanizer) as well as others they meet. But will it be enough to defeat Dom-x’s evil sorcery?
Making a low to no-budget fantasy film is never really a good idea. The genre brings with it expectations that require money to do in a way that viewers will accept. Even films like Dragon Kingdom and Dragon Knight that were filmed in the UK where there are castles and recreated Medieval villages to use for sets have trouble providing the creatures, and battles fans of the genre want.
As well as starring in Lost in Terra Dimension Lehto and Gutierrez also wrote and directed it, shooting on weekends for most of 2015. That kind of schedule and the seven year post-production period should give you an idea of just how low their budget was. So don’t go into this expecting much in the way of costumes, monsters, or mystical realms.
Perhaps wisely Lost in Terra Dimension doesn’t even try to look like anywhere but where it was shot, Southern California. The characters live in modern houses, mostly wear contemporary clothes, and while nobody hops in a car to go anywhere, we do see roads in several shots. Dealing with an evil sorcerer who lives on a ranch rather than in a castle and wears a leather jacket rather than robes or armor took a bit of work to accept. But why not, there’s no reason apart from expectations that something like this has to look like it’s set in the ancient past.
Effects are limited to CGI magic energy bolts and some storm effects. It’s nothing very elaborate, but it’s mostly decent quality. At other times they simply work around the need for effects, for example, a sentient horse communicates by telepathy to avoid trying to make its mouth look like it’s talking.
Unfortunately, the real problem with Lost in Terra Dimension is the script itself. The film is an hour long and actually needed to be a bit longer. At several points things shift very abruptly from scene to scene, leaving me confused as to how the characters suddenly got from one place to the other. Similarly, the film’s opening sequences felt very disjointed. Some quick bridging scenes to help tie things together would have gone a long way toward making the film work.
There’s also some fairly horrible dialogue scattered through Lost in Terra Dimension. Having characters talk about magic and have it sound coherent is as hard as avoiding technobabble in a science fiction film. Possibly harder because you can research science and make it sound credible. It also doesn’t help that some of the performers speaking those lines are, to put it kindly, less than talented.
I do give the filmmakers credit for attempting a no-budget fantasy film and sticking with it through what must have been a seemingly endless post-production process. And, unlike so many others who put even worse films like Joker Scarecrow or Night on Amazon Prime and charged people for the privilege of suffering through them, they put Lost in Terra Dimension up on YouTube as a free watch.
As a freebie Lost in Terra Dimension might be worth your time if you don’t mind fantasy films that look more like a LARP than LOTR. It’s picked up 31,000 views so somebody likes it, and I’ve certainly seen a lot worse. You can find it on YouTube or check the film’s Facebook page for more information. If you’re fantasizing about watching more fantasy, FilmTagger can suggest a few titles.