Astral is a 2018 British horror film directed by Chris Mul and starring Frank Dillane and Vanessa Grasse.

After hearing a professor discuss out-of-body experiences, Alex decides to try to contact her spirit through astral projection.

Dillane was heading to Mexico to engage in post-production voice dubbing, so they had a limited time frame in which to film Astral.

"Although everyone [in the crew] received payment for the film, for working on it, at this budget you can't meet the larger scale minimum rates, so we almost took it as like a two week holiday.

Through audition casting sessions, Damson Idris (Alex's friend Jordan) and Vanessa Grasse (Alyssa) were chosen.

Chris Mul told an interviewer that "the older, more experienced actors [...] came on board two, three, four days before we were about to shoot.

Director Chris Mul said that the university "looked beautiful, but we knew the time was fast approaching for the summer to end.

Crew members dressed up and were "almost just completely blacked out" to give Dillane something to interact with, rather than just green screen.

[6] Dee describes the premise as captivating but ultimately derivative, and somewhat deceptive, since the movie turns out to focus less on astral projection (which is never visually portrayed) and instead more on sleep paralysis.

[8] Dennis Harvey of Variety gave the film a negative review and wrote, "You’ll wish you could project yourself into a different entertainment dimension while slogging through Astral.