Future Shock

An anthology of maybe horror stories where Martin Kove plays a psychiatrist who uses a virtual reality machine to probe the minds of his patients. Three overlong crappy tame made-for-tv style stories follow, none of which are worth your time in the slightest. Bill Paxton shows up to chew some scenery in the second segment but can't even save it. There's a nice cast of whose who including Brion James, Vivian Schilling, etc. And apparently J. J. Abrams composed the music.

Imagine a woman alone in a house for forty five minutes in which absolutely nothing happens. Then this goes on twice more. The writing is flat and lifeless, and jokes unfunny, and the bad acting keeps you from caring about any of the characters, even when they battle wolf packs and get beaten up by fraternity goons. Anyone that ranked this movie higher than a two is not fully sane.

This is a horrible movie. All three stories are bracketed with a psychiatrist hypnotist line which is unnecessary and all the stories are bad. The first is about wild wolves and some lady, there are some things that don't make sense, but the hypnotism thing makes up for that. The second one, with bad Bill Paxton as a maniac roommate should not be viewed by anyone. The last one, sadly the best is almost incomprehensible which I guess makes it better than the other garbage.

I knew FUTURE SHOCK's packaging was a scam, as "The Roommate" short subject has made the "tournee" circuit a couple of times since 1987. However, this three-part anthology is still pretty good.

"The Roommate" is by far the best segment. Bill Paxton excels as a squirrely, abrasive con artist who barges his way into a roomie relationship with meek apprentice coroner Scott Thompson. He rips off, torments, and abuses Thompson. Thompson tries to kill the unwelcome visitor, with ironic results. The black humor keeps the film from being a thoroughly unpleasant experience. James Karen has a welcome supporting role as one of Thompson's co-workers.

The least successful entry, "Mr. Petrified Forest," was a USC master thesis and is predictably filled with arty composition and paper-thin sentiment. The title character is a "chicken little" type who waits nervously for a predicted earthquake to hit LA. It never hits, but he falls in love with another paranoid. He tells the story from a heavenly "wait station," as doctors on earth frantically try to revive him from a mysterious accident.

Another examination of paranoia, "Jenny Potter," stars and was written by interesting actress Vivian Schilling. She lives in a Malibu house decked out like a fortress, with silent alarms and a computerized security system that talks. Her husband (Brion James) leaves her alone one night and her nightmare fears of being attacked by dogs edges into her real world. The episode is scary but pointless.

As you might expect, the weakest link in FUTURE SHOCK is its framing sequence, in which doctor Martin Kove interviews each segments' protagonists. He uses a funky strobe light thingie to hypnotize them and lead into each of the stories.

This film is not a masterpiece and I shall not pretend that it is. However it does offer some surprisingly fresh and effective ideas and is overall and enjoyable watch.

Segment one is surprisingly tense for a film with a clearly tiny budget. The lead actress' performance is strong enough to sustain the segment, the camera-work creates a good feeling of isolation and vulnerability, and the downplayed musical score adds to the sense of dread throughout. This is the simplest short and uses this to its advantage.

Segment two veers into a more darkly comedic tone. It works due to the entertaining performances of the leads and the effectively surrealist atmosphere. However overall this is the weakest segment, mostly due to feeling out of place with the rest of the film.

Segment three is the best, due to its less goofy attempts at dark comedy over the last segment. It actually offers a fairly entertaining and in depth character study and offers some fairly complex ideas on the nature of mortality. The writing is good, the acting is solid and the humorous moments are well integrated.

Overall I was very impressed by this simple yet effective anthology. Its low budget charm and snappy writing really created an enjoyable tone for this one, and I highly recommend it, despite its quirks.