Site: Bad Karma Makes Dangerous Science

It's all about quantum physics. In this case, it’s quantum entanglement rather than time travel, until it maybe sort of becomes time travel, or maybe not. It is all very complicated, especially for an average working stiff building inspector. To make matters worse, he is a massive screw-up, but maybe that wasn’t his fault. Perhaps the blame should fall on karma or string theory, in director-screenwriter Jason Eric Perlman’s Site, which releases today in theaters and on VOD.

Neil Bardo (a name rife with Buddhist significance) was on the verge of patching things up with his estranged wife Elena and moving back in with her and their son Wiley. Then he went on a fateful inspection with his slimy boss, Garrison Vey. The local district wants to convert a weird abandoned lab into a school, but it needs a clean inspection report. Vey stands to make a lot of money in kickbacks if the sale goes through, so he needs Bardo to issue a rubber stamp.

However, the property is very strange. There is a bunch of bizarre equipment that they naturally fire up. It has a strange effect on Bardo, giving him disturbing visions of a Japanese military lab in wartime Manchuria and warps his sense of time. Bardo suspects Vey had similar experiences, but the corrupt dirtbag denies it. Unfortunately, Bardo continues having vivid hallucinations. As a result, he crashes his motorcycle, potentially blinding Wiley for life. Obviously, the “site” should not pass inspection, but Vey uses every point of leverage, including Wiley’s future.

It soon becomes clear Bardo’s visions originate in the notorious Unit 731, where the Imperial Japanese conducted truly horrific experiments on prisoners. Using such a notorious site of real-life horror in a science fiction film conceived for entertainment purposes is a risky proposition. There is an a priori question of taste, but there was clearly an effort to depict Unit 731 with due sensitivity. Like it or not, the notion that the Macguffin experiment might focus on the facility because there were no survivors, also makes a certain degree of grim logical sense.

Perlman’s underlying concept, essentially that quantum entanglement, generational trauma, and karma are all more or less the same thing, is rather intriguing—and he develops this idea well. However, there is an awful lot that gets glossed over during the climax and denouement. It also strains credibility that anyone would ever trust Vey, especially Bardo’s wife.

Nevertheless, Theo Rossi is spectacularly sleazy as Vey. Jake McLaughlin and Miki Ishikawa have nice chemistry as Neil Bardo and Naomi Uchida, a journalist helping him investigate the site, who also happens to be his college ex. Arielle Kebbel does what she can in the role of Elena Bardo, but Perlman saddles her character with conspicuously dubious judgement.

Reeder’s The A-Frame

Sam Dunn is such a brilliant scientist, he accidentally cured cancer. At least that is how he sees himself. However, even he would admit his social graces are lacking. Regardless, he believes his Quantum Dislocator offers unexpected fringe benefits and lucky Donna Walker will make the perfect test subject to prove it in director-screenwriter Calvin Lee Reeder’s The A-Frame, which releases this Tuesday on digital VOD.

Walker’s bone cancer would not necessarily be fatal, but as a musician, she considers the prospect of a hand amputation almost as bad. Consequently, she figures she has little to lose when the hospital system-hacking Dunn approaches her. The way he explains, if she puts her hand in his Dislocator box, the quantum reconstruction essentially filters out the cancer. How does he know? Evidently, Dunn could only afford to buy lab discount rats that were already riddled with cancer for his experiments, but it worked out nicely, both for him and the rats.

At least that is his story and Walker’s experience initially confirms it. However, things get dicier when Dunn requests her help recruiting a full-body test subject. To fully measure his quantum process, the abrasive scientist needs to transfer a live human from one of his Stargate-like “A-Frames” to another, much like the teleportation experiment in Cronenberg’s The Fly. Of course, you will remember how well that worked out for Dr. Seth Brundle.

The A-Frame is by far Reeder’s most grounded film and not coincidentally, his most successful. (In contrast, his debut feature, The Oregonian is almost unwatchable. Maybe it is set in Oregon—it is hard to tell, but hopefully it is the closest most viewers will get to visiting Hell.) There is still a bit of Reeder’s grungy, disorienting style, but he reins it in to the point that it makes A-Frame distinctive and edgy rather than punishing.

Johnny Whitworth (who recurred on CS: Miami) also follows whole-heartedly in the hubristic mad scientist tradition, chewing the scenery with caustic relish as the arrogant Dunn. His cutting sarcasm is nicely counterbalanced by Dana Namerode as the more grounded (but nearly as acerbic) Walker. Their rhythm and rapport really helps Reeder power through the first act and thoroughly sets the hook for the ensuing chaos.

In Vitro, Near-Future Australia

Cloning started with Dolly the Sheep. Apparently, Jack and Layla’s cattle farm brought it full circle. However, the resulting cattle are not resting easy. Strang happenings are afoot in Will Howarth & Tom McKeith’s In Vitro, which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.

In Vitro is set in the near-future Australia, but the couple’s ranch looks like the hardscrabble U.S.A., anytime over the last twenty years. Jack made the visionary decision to embrace biotech. Unfortunately, a lot of the resulting cows have been dying lately. Layla suspects a stranger has been stalking the farm. She is also getting weird vibes from Jack.

Maybe you can guess what is going on quicker than Layla, but the reveal is suitably dramatic. This is probably the angstiest speculative fiction you might have seen in quite some time. Yet, it is the dysfunctional central relationship that really drives the action.

Co-screenwriter Talia Zucker shows amazing range and flexibility as Layla, in ways that would be spoilery to explain. Yet, she is also always very grounded and reserved. Ashley Zukerman never overplays his hand either, hitting the right vaguely creepy notes, but not to an overbearingly menacing degree as Jack. They successfully convey the dysfunctional nature of their chemistry, born out of years of difficult shared history, as well as a nagging sense that something is profoundly wrong between them.

It is hard to write about In Vitro without being too revealing. Compounding the trickiness, it also happens to be an unusually quiet film. Both the eerie sound design and lonely setting contribute to a distinctively austere vibe. Yet, it suits Howarth, McKeith, and Zucker’s themes and motifs.

Earth II: CCP Nuclear Blackmail in Space

This 1971 TV movie feels more realistic today than it did the year it released. When it was produced, Mainland China was still not a UN member, but by the time it aired, the Communist regime had taken Taiwan’s place. In retrospect, that was a huge mistake. In the film (conceived as a TV pilot), the CCP engages in nuclear blackmail, in defiance of the UN. Today, they would do so with UN support. However, the titular international space station is at the greatest risk in Tom Gries’s Earth II, which releases today on BluRay.

Most UN member nations, including the United States, agreed to help finance Earth II and recognize it as a sovereign nation, in the Roddenberry-esque hope that it will develop scientific innovations to solve all our terrestrial problems. The one-world idealists insist Earth II must remain neutral, but hawks like Frank Karger are skeptical. However, the former NASA launch director has the kind of skills Earth II needs, so he immigrates with his family, intending to shape more realistic military and defense policies for the space station.

In contrast, his friend and colleague David Seville strictly advocates for Earth II’s utopian ideals. Unfortunately, reality intrudes when China launches a satellite armed with nuclear warheads, ironically pointed at Moscow (even though the USSR originally supplied the nukes to their socialist brothers). Clearly, screenwriters Allan Balter and William Read Woodfield subscribed to the Sino-Soviet split scenario that was then in vogue.

Rather awkwardly, every rotation Earth II makes round Earth I, they come perilously close to colliding with the CCP satellite. They issue strongly worded diplomatic protests, but the “Red Chinese” (as the film refers to the regime) tells Earth II to go pound sand. Seville is inclined to live with Damocles Sword, but Karger convinces the station through their town meeting-style direct democracy to take active measures to remove the nukes.

Obviously, Gries, Balter, and Woodfield have a greater affinity for Team Seville. Yet, some of the rash, ill-thought-out actions of his fellow peaceniks risk ultimate Armageddon for Earth I. Indeed, the writing is sufficiently smart, to the extent that it greatly muddles the intended message, which actually makes the TV film quite interesting. Earth II also has the distinction of advisory help from both NASA and, believe it or not, Buckminster Fuller, who created the geometric maps displayed in the control room.

Tony Franciosa is surprisingly good as Karger (even though his presence screams “TV movie,” especially since Mariette Hartley portrays his wife, Lisa). However, Gary Lockwood is disappointingly dour and rather unengaged as Seville (especially considering his classic appearance in 2001 and his great guest-shot on Star Trek). On the other hand, Gary Merrill is reliably craggy as veteran operations director Walter Dietrich. It is also worth noting the great James Hong and Soon-tek Oh appear uncredited as the Red Chinese “diplomats.”

Ash, Co-Starring Iko Uwais

The planet dubbed “Ash” by the exploratory team is admittedly a bit of a fixer-upper. The atmosphere is only partially toxic. However, by the Earth’s current standards, that sounds like a pretty good deal. Unfortunately, something else got there first, which is always how things work in movies like Flying Lotus’s Ash, which opens today in theaters.

Dozens of teams were dispatched to prospective planets in hope of finding a suitable refuge from the Earth’s imminent eco-destruction. Ash was looking like a decent candidate, until something went wrong. Riya Ortiz is not sure what happened. She came to with a severe case of amnesia amid the dead bodies of most of her fellow crew, who clearly died violent, grisly deaths.

Eventually, Brion, from their orbiting overwatch comes down to investigate. Obviously, he is a little suspicious of Ortiz and she is a little suspicious of him. He insists she keep medicating, in the hopes that it might temper her possible psychotic eruptions. Nevertheless, she keeps having flashes of memory return, which suggest something not unlike John Carpenter’s The Thing.

It is absolutely bizarre that Flying Lotus (a.k.a. Steven Ellison) gave dramatically more screentime to both Aaron Paul and Elza Gonzalez (who play Ortiz and Brion) than martial arts superstar Iko Uwais, who portrays their commander, Adhi. However, at least he gets a showcase fight sequence that shows off his skills.

To be fair, Paul portrays Brion with convincing shiftiness, but Gonzalez is no Helen Ripley—not even close. Frankly, aside from Uwais, the only crew-member contributing any charisma or screen presence would be Beulah Koale as Kevin (who also happens to be a jazz trumpeter, which is a nice bit of character development).

Most genre fans will also anticipate every beat of Jonni Remmler’s screenplay, well in advance. However, the effects and the gory fight scenes are nicely executed (especially Uwais’s, of course). Arguably, the brutal action sequences help elevate Ash above other Alien-clones (like Life).

Aladdin 3477: The Jinn of Wisdom

Evidently, in 1,400 years, or so, there will still be people who believe in magic—not just Jedi and Bene Gesserit mental powers, but straight up magic. However, they will no longer spell Djinn with a “D.” Regardless, a luckless loser finds a certain lamp in director-screenwriter-editor Matt Busch’s Aladdin 3477: The Jinn of Wisdom, which is now available on VOD.

Yes, his name is Aladdin and he eventually stumbles across a lamp, but it is clear Busch was more interested in remaking Star Wars (even giving it poster-placement and a shout-out) rather than The Thief of Baghdad. Aladdin hopes to rescue a princess, which is a common element to both films, but his constant companion is a robot named Fidgi, shaped suspiciously like R2D2, but he flies very much like V.I.N.CENT in the Black Hole.

There is also a dodgy adventurer who keeps conning thieves into trying to steal the Jinn of Wisdom’s lamp from its buried tomb, but he can never successfully negotiate the inevitable “you throw me the idol, I throw you the whip” impasse. Of course, Aladdin agrees to be his next unwitting victim.

In fact, it takes about an hour before the Jinn makes his first appearance. Frankly, the first fifteen minutes are entirely devoted to Aladdin running through a Hong Kong bizarre, trying to avoid the cops and his vengeful ex. That would be Hong Kong, China, as it is identified. The United States also happens to now be part of the United States of China, so Busch certainly did his best to position the film for a Chinese distribution deal.

There are times when the film’s grungy but inventive special effects hold nostalgic charm, especially for fans of Roger Corman’s Star Wars knockoffs (like Space Raiders). However, the titular character is boorishly obnoxious, especially in his treatment Oomi, his torch-carrying protector.

Fantasia ’24: The Silent Planet

If he is the only man on this world and she is the only woman, they must either be murderers or terrorists (or possibly guilty of “political crimes”). In the future, those are the only reasons for their exile on a distant uninhabited planet. Frankly, they never would have sent Niyya had they known Theodore was still alive. Given the state of his health, mental and physical, he probably will not be for long. The question is whether they will work together or tear each other apart during the time they cohabitate penal colony planet #384 in Jeffrey St. Jules’ The Silent Planet, which had its world premiere at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival.

This lonely planet has at least driven Theodore half-crazy, if not fully so. He is convinced the mysterious sentient-like gasses literally create hallucinations and plant false memories. From what viewers see, he might be right, or alternatively, he is just nuts. One day he carves his embedded tracker monitor out of his shoulder, so he can finally sleep in. As a result, the systems assume he is dead, so the recently convicted Niyya lands to replace him mining rare galactic minerals.

At first, Theodore and Niyya are leery of each other, which quickly segues into overt hostility. However, when the realization they are literally the only two people on the planet sets in, they try to make nice. However, Theodore’s sudden flashes of memory leads Niyya to suspect their lives are intertwined in a notoriously nasty way. Yet, the coincidence of them both ending up in the same isolated planet seems highly unlikely to Theodore, so he assumes the gas is toying with them.

Frankly, Silent Planet is a lot like a whole lot of other films. Unfortunately, this silent planet is usually also rather slow going. St. Jules clearly assumes Niyya’s backstory as the adopted daughter of Oe parents, an alien race meant to represent and generate sympathy for undocumented/illegal migrants, adds depth to the story. Unfortunately, every Oe flashback is so clumsily didactic, they sabotage everything that works in the film.

Mostly, that means they leave Elias Koteas hanging, even though the way he portrays Theodore piecing together his fractured memories is by far the best thing going for this film. He compellingly depicts the destruction wrought by guilt and isolation, while the paranoia he stokes regarding the nature of the planet is a nice bonus.

In-Flight: Break of Dawn

In Japan, their favorite Jetson must be Rosey, the family’s robotic maid. That is just a guess based on recent pop culture trends. In a few days, Apple TV+ viewers will meet Sunny, the Housebot, in the Japanese-set series named after her. Nanako is an autoboot, but she largely has the same functions. However, she has a much more sci-fi destiny in Tomoyuki Kurokawa’s Break of Dawn, which is available on American Airlines international flights (it never ceases to amaze what you can find on international in-flight entertainment systems).

Yama is crazy about space, but not so enthusiastic about robots, at least judging by his treatment of Nanako. His parents insist she is one of the family, but he acts like she is merely a kitchen appliance. Annoyingly, his friends like her too, because it is advantageous to play video games in “autobot mode.”

Suddenly, while retrieving the errant Yama, Nanako’s system fails. She successfully reboots, but then February Dawn, an alien AI, takes control over her body. As Yama and his friends, Shingo Kishi and Gin Tadokoro, soon learn, his ship crashed on earth over 10,000 years ago. Fortunately, he has gleaned some useful intel from an errant satellite that took on a mind of its own, after colliding with a comet. If Yama and his two cronies can retrieve a missing crystal, they can help him power-up his craft, before it is destroyed, along with the old Stuytown-like apartment building scheduled for demolition, where it is perched, apparently invisible to the naked eye.

When Nanako comes to and beholds the VR-visions February Dawn projects for Yama and his friends, she agrees to help, even though she is not programmed to deceive his parents. That might become an issue later. For the meantime, they need that crystal. They soon discover it is in the possession of Kaori Kawai, an upperclassman at their school, bullied by Kishi’s mean-girl older sister, Wako. That too will be an issue. However, the most surprising revelation for Yama will be the discovery her father and his parents were previously acquainted. They may even know something about February Dawn.

Invaders from Proxima B, on Fandango at Home

"Chuck" is a lot like Alf, but he can also body-switch. He is a gruff little troublemaker, but a Hollywood musician and his family decide to help anyway in director-screenwriter-lead actor Ward Roberts’ Invaders from Proxima B, which premieres today on Fandango at Home.

Fleeing his not very-Roddenberry-esque alien planet in a stolen flying saucer, Chuck crash-lands in Howie Jankins’ backyard. Of course, his wife Jane did not see anything, but he is sure there is something out there, so the next morning he calls Nathan Droogal, the world’s most annoying fire-and-brimstone exterminator. While Droogal hunts demonic vermin, Chuck reveals himself to Jankins, claiming to be on a mission to save planet Earth. Reluctantly, Jankins agrees to let Chuck temporarily switch bodies with him. Maybe he was a bit gullible, but coming face-to-face with a furry space puppet is bound to be convincing.

Nevertheless, things get a bit sticky when Wily and Marvin Felson start poking around. The father and son agents of a secret alien-liaison organization have been ordered to facilitate Chuck’s extradition. They also hope to get a kickback for their efforts. As the chaos mounts, Jankins accidentally uses Chuck’s body-switching powers on his wife, creating a real mess.

Viewers might initially fear Roberts’ extreme DIY aesthetic will lead to deliberately cheesy low-brow humor. However, Proxima is surprisingly inventive. Most of the special effects involve a puppet who looks like Oscar the Grouch’s cousin. Yet, it also boasts some reasonably slick-looking animated segments depicting Chuck’s flashbacks.

Mars Express, from GKIDS

Science fiction once reflected society’s concerns, but lately, it more often tries to shape and alter society’s worries instead. Horror has become a better barometer of our true collective anxieties. AI is a prime example. Horror depicts the potential deadly menace of AI in movies like M3gan. In contrast, sf tells us human beings are the bad guys, so AI constructs have more to fear from us than we do from them, in films like The Creator, Automata, The Artifice Girl, Ex Machina, and Chappie, many of which bombed at the box office. Can human and artificial consciousnesses just get along? The answer is complicated, but it boils down to probably not in Jeremie Perin’s GKIDS-released animated feature Mars Express, which opens this Friday in New York.

In the future, anybody who is anyone lives on Mars rather than the crummy old Earth. Artificial intelligence has achieved self-aware consciousness, but they are still bound prime directive programming—unless a cybernetic hacker “jailbreaks” them. Most of private investigator Aline Ruby’s work involves catching such criminals, at the behest robotics tycoon Chris Royjacker, with the help her partner, Carlos Rivera. Sadly, Rivera was killed several years ago, but they still work together, because he had the foresight to back-up his consciousness. Ruby fully accepts the back-up Rivera cyborg, but Rivera’s former family did not.

Recently, a rash of jailbreaks have led to violent robotic crime sprees. There seems to be a systemic effort to corrupt artificial intelligences. Ruby and Rivera quickly suspect it might be related to their latest case: the disappearance of a cybernetic programming student.

Mars Express is a cool-looking attempt to create a Ghost in the Shell-style world, with its own distinctive sociological take on human-AI interaction, inspired by Asimov’s laws of robotics. Perin and co-screenwriter Laurant Sarfati also shrewdly import elements of the noir detective genre. However, they inevitably return to same anti-human themes, inviting viewers to literally root against their own species.

Ironically, Mars Express is an animated film with deeply human characters. Ruby is a recovering alcoholic, who falters due to the stress of the case. Back-up Rivera yearns to reconnect with Rivera-prime’s family, but he cannot undue his former self’s mistakes or his ex-wife’s revulsion to his current physical form. (To be fair, the way his head hovers above his should, sans neck, is a bit disconcerting).

CIFF ’24: White Plastic Sky

The residennts of 2123 Budapest survive thanks to what you might consider vegan Soylent Green. It is grown from trees, but it is still made of people. At least they get twenty more years than the 30-year-olds in Logan’s Run before they must surrender to Dr. Janos Paulik’s revolutionary hybrid-agricultural process. As a psychologist, Stefan Kovacs regularly attends to grieving patients, who resent losing loved ones during the prime of their lives. However, he cannot console himself when his wife Nora Kallay voluntarily sacrifices herself at the premature age of thirty-two. Despite the risks to his career and the social order, Kovacs intends to reverse the process and save his wife in Tibor Banoczki & Sarolta Szabo’s White Plastic Sky, which screens during the 2024 Cleveland International Film Festival.

Fertility is low in the future, so when Kallay and Kovacs lost their young son, it was a devastating blow that she never recovered from. He knew she was hurting, but he never thought she would volunteer. Since he is four years her junior, he should have plenty of time to start over, but instead, he hatches a rescue plan (even though she probably does not want to be rescued).

With information provided by his brother Mark, who was once a security officer in the human “plantation” outside the domed city of Budapest, Kovacs acquires forged work orders to perform psych evaluations of the staff. He suspects the somewhat rebellious Dr. Madu (who happens to be pushing fifty) will be willing to help and he assumes she can perform the reversal operation. Unfortunately, he is only half right. The plantation lacks adequate facilities for an operation, but her old mentor, Paulik, could perform the reversal in his secret research facility in the Slovakian mountainside.

White Plastic Sky is the best looking post-apocalyptic film in decades. It might not have much competition, but it is, nonetheless. The domed urban centers, ruined cities, and Paulik’s Bond-villain-worthy eagle’s nest installation represent some of the best science fiction art-for-film since Chesley Bonestell’s heyday. The rotoscoped figure-animation is also quite effective. Banoczki & Szabo’s narrative is not exactly unprecedented, but they instill it with a fable-like vibe that is quite arresting.

Bonello’s The Beast

In the year 2044, “cleaning your DNA” is a lot like what taking the Covid vaccine was in 2021. You just cannot get a decent job without doing it. To us, it looks and sounds more like clearing your karma. Regardless, the totally-not-dystopian government makes life difficult for those who decline, so people will not be as prone to the extreme emotions that led to the 2025 civil war. Reluctantly, Gabrielle Monnier undergoes the process in Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast, which opens tomorrow in New York.

While immersed in the treatment, Monnier will revisit her past lives in 1910 Paris and 2014 Hollywood, so she can work through her trauma-karma. In all three time-periods, her life is apparently quantum-entangled with the of Louis (Lewanski in the 2014 storyline). Back in the early 20^th Century, they were blue-blooded French socialites, who were incapable of commencing an illicit affair due to circumstances and their own timidity. During the 2014 sequences, she is an aspiring actress house-sitting in the Hollywood Hills, while he is an angry, entitled lout, on the verge of committing a horrible violent crime. Yet, back in the future, they are both outsiders, struggling to fit in.

Somehow, all these lifetimes and timelines are inter-connected, at least according to science. Bonello identifies Henry James’ novella The Beast in the Jungle as the inspiration for the film, but it reads more like a rejoinder than a riff. In Monnier’s past lifetimes, there very definitely was a beast, or something, out there, which was undeniably dangerous.

The Beast is undeniably uneven and erratic, but somehow those flaws help make it such a weirdly powerful film. Eventually, the 1910 sequences become incredibly surreal, in ways Lanthimos, Gondry, and Aronofsky should appreciate. Yet, the 2014 time-frame ultimately overpowers and overshadows everything else in the film. Without exaggeration, these scenes constitute the most breathlessly intense home invasion horror film of the year. This is a white-knuckle viewing experience.

Monolith: The Bricks are Out There

There is a tradition of “big dumb objects” in science fiction, best represented by the classic one in 2001: A Space Odyssey. This time around, they are technically little dumb objects, but they hold great mystery nonetheless. Of course, in this kind of sf, the objects usually turn out to be anything but dumb. In fact, the “bricks” a disgraced journalist investigates seem to be decidedly dangerous in Matt Vesely’s Monolith, which releases today in theater and VOD.

She is credited simply as “The Interviewer,” but most viewers will refer to her as the Podcaster. She was a journalist, but she was forced to resign in disgrace after accusing a prominent businessman of crimes without adequate evidence. Of course, the film thinks this makes her the victim, because slander should be fine, as long as your heart is in the right place, or something like that. After getting doxed, she retreated to her parents’ incredible modernistic luxury home, where she half-heartedly looks for stories to cover for a George Noory-ish podcast, the only media outlet that would still hire her. Then an anonymous email grabs her attention.

Based on the tip, she calls a complete stranger to ask about a mysterious brick that just turned up in the woman’s possession. Apparently, the former domestic’s employer sold it against her will to Klaus, an eccentric German art dealer, who has a collection of such objects. He discovered his own brick, which he believed was the source of his strange and unnerving hallucinations. His experiences were not unique. In fact, many people who encountered bricks suffered severe ill-health shortly thereafter, leading many to assume a causal linkage.

Monolith skillfully employs the isolated podcasting set-up to create claustrophobic tension in much the same way First Time Caller did, but Vesely’s film is more effective due to the superior sound design. As the Interviewer digs into the mystery, it evolves in many intriguing directions. It shares a possible plot twist with Bruce McDonald’s amazing Pontypool, which was also similarly constructed around an isolated radio studio, but admittedly, it has been a while since that film released.

Arguably, the way the story starts taking greater personal significance for the Interviewer is quite dramatic. However, it eventually goes in direction very much like Luke Sommer’s Cellphone, but the recent horror film better executes its macabre climax.

Alienoid: Return to the Future

That phrase "return to the future” sure sounds like you could build a successful science fiction franchise around it, right? In fact, the first Alienoid was an entertainingly wild ride, incorporating superheroes, magic, time travel, and alien invasions. Like any aspiring franchise, it ended with a major cliffhanger, but nobody minded, because everything that led up to it was so cool. We will pick back up with Earth’s ragtag but superpowered defenders in 14^th Century Korea, where they must obtain the “Divine Sword” to save the present-day Earth in Choi Dong-hoon’s Alienoid: Return to the Future, which opens this Friday in theaters.

To save Earth in the future, the AI “Thunder” must regroup with little Ean in the past. It is sort of like “going home” for the girl, because Thunder and his humanoid counterpart “Guard” found her orphaned there some 600 years ago, while they were chasing a renegade time-traveling alien criminal.

You might want to revisit the review for the first film, other reviews, its wiki page, and any other resource you can think of, because there was a lot going on. Long story short, alien criminals have been imprisoned inside Earthlings. Ususually, neither the host or the captive are aware of the situation, but when the alien “wakens,” oh boy, is there ever trouble.

Back in our time, there is a full-scale alien uprising going on. They plan to takeover Earth by poisoning our atmosphere. The only off-switch is the Divine Sword that Ean is looking for in the past. She has grown up to be the mysterious “Girl Who Shoots Thunder,” who made such an impression on Murak, a clumsy but powerful Taoist Dosa magician.

In the first film, the modern-day scenes worked a lot better than those in the past, largely because of the dopiness of Murak and the shtickiness of Heug-seol and Cheong-woon, a couple of mage-grifters, who start out as Murak’s rivals, but become his allies. Fortunately, they will find two new allies, the Satoichi-like swordsman Nong-pa in the past, and his future descendant, Min Gae-in, a customs service investigator, who can bust the aliens for not paying their tariffs.

The first Alienoid was probably the best superhero movie of the last five-years, because it was a fresh and original alternative to the stale Marvel and DC worlds. Return to the Future is still fun, but it often feels like a Marvel movie, because it mostly consists of costumed characters fighting each other in a one crazy, confusing set piece after another.

First Time Caller, Written by Mac Rogers

A lot of people thought they discovered something new with podcasts, but they were really just reinventing radio. It used to be the biggest form of mass entertainment in the 1930s, when it spawned the first media-driven end of the world scare with Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds. Presumably, that was an inspiration for this story, but the apocalyptic events are all too real in J.D. Brynn & Abe Goldfarb’s First Time Caller, written by Mac Rogers, which releases today on VOD.

As the film opens, Brent Ziff is right where he always wanted to be—making big money podcasting alone in his house. He sort of combines the conspiracy-laden subject matter of Art Bell and George Noory with the abrasive humor of Howard Stern. He also has an eccentric stable of regular caller-contributors, whom he similarly mocks, but his anti-woke politics lean more towards Glenn Beck or Dan Bongino. Regardless, Leo Short has been a longtime listener, but as you can guess, this will be his first night calling in.

“Shorty,” as Ziff quickly dubs him, has a bizarre warning: a freak tsunami is about to hit Seattle without warning. Of course, Ziff assumes he is a crank, who cannot even devise a doomsday theory he can profit off, until it happens. Then he hopes Short can be something like Bell’s The Day After Tomorrow for his show. However, he starts to grasp the stark reality of the situation when Shorty keeps predicting further natural disasters, one after another.

Adapting from his own podcast, The Earth Moves, Rogers nicely translates the aesthetics of classic radio dramas (and paranoid podcasts) to the feature dramatic format. It definitely has a stagey set-up, limited to a confined set, with most of the supporting cast literally “phoning in” their performances, but the story wouldn’t work otherwise. If Ziff were not so sequestered from the world, he would be swept up in the Armageddon rather than reacting to it.

In fact, the writing is quite smart. Rogers also wrote an amazing Karel Capek homage titled Universal Robots that would be tricky to adapt to the screen, but it would be fascinating to watch someone attempt it. Regardless, this is a terrific example of science fiction that is driven by ideas rather than visual effects. Arguably, it is somewhat stylistically and thematically akin to Andrew Patterson’s The Vast of Night, which also relied on analog phone calls and radio broadcasts, but that 1950s-set retro sf film is even more spellbinding.

The Shift, from Angel Studios

Maybe we aren’t trapped in a digital matrix. Maybe the Devil “shifts” people between alternate parallel realities instead. The Mephistophelean character never exactly calls himself that, but the so-called “Benefactor” definitely sees himself as a rival to the Man Upstairs. It turns out faith-based science fiction finds a way to give dystopian and multiversal themes a new twist in director-screenwriter Brock Heasley’s The Shift, produced by Angel Studios (the Sound of Freedom distributor), which opens Friday in theaters.

Kevin Garner was finance shark who found redemption when his future wife, Molly, approached him on a dare. Thanks to her influence, he went back to church and started acting like a good husband and father. However, the death of their young son sent him spiraling down again. That is when Satan/The Benefactor approaches Garner.

It turns out, Garner has been his go-to guy in every other dimension, becoming his Faustian enforcer, to enjoy all the hedonistic perks that position entails. He can’t “shift” anyone though. Only the Benefactor’s secret “shifter” operatives, with their special shifting bracelets, can slip innocent victims into an alternation reality.

 

Much to the Benefactor’s surprise, this Garner turns him down, because he still has faith.  As punishment, the Satanic overlord shifts Garner to his grimmest, most dystopian reality, where his evil powers are openly recognized and feared. Forced to live underground, Garner clings to the hope that he can reunite with Molly in another reality.

The conclusion is a little clunky, but the guts of The Shift have some surprisingly fresh multiversal science fiction elements, especially the way the dystopian characters relate to their alternate selves. Heasley’s Job-riffing script definitely reflects an Evangelical Christian perspective, but it goes for long extended periods without appealing to faith. Of course, the Devil is evil and nasty all the way through, but the same could be said for plenty of secular horror movies.

Brightwood: Profoundly Lost and Hungover

Jen and her disappointing husband Dan are about to get sucked into some kind of time loop, or something, with the worst possible people: each other. Unfortunately, the viewers have to go through the looping with both of them. Their marriage is on the rocks and it is easy to understand why. The real question is how they got together in the first place. Of course, the more pressing issues are what is happening to them and how do they get out of it in director-screenwriter Dane Elcar’s Brightwood, which releases today on VOD.

Dan made a drunken spectacle of himself at a work party in Jen’s honor the night before, so now she is being not-so-passive aggressive about it. Technically, it was her idea to jog around the nearby large pond or small lake. The thing is they just cannot get around it. Instead, they keep coming back to the same “no swimming” sign. The vibe is very weird, especially when they hear a high-pitched headache inducing tone. Then they notice a mysterious hooded figure.

Elcar (the son of Dana Elcar, the first Sheriff Patterson on Dark Shadows) cleverly directs the traffic for a number of near-misses and weird encounters that we later see from different perspectives and angles. Yet, they never build to a suitably trippy revelation. Instead, we’re stuck going through all the loops with two of the lost annoying movie characters of the year.

Sophie Bartes’ The Pod Generation

Don't call them test tube babies. They come from pods, at least they do if their parents have sufficient resources for stress-free pregnancies. There are still people who prefer to do things the old-fashioned way, but Rachel Novy does not think she is one of them. Yet, her pod-pregnancy starts to change her perspective in screenwriter-director Sophie Bartes’ The Pod Generation, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Rachel Novy is an online marketing consultant, while her husband Alvy is a botanist. That definitely means she is the one who makes all their money. Seriously, in this near-ish future, botany is almost a lost science, since most plants are synthetic or computer generated. As you might suspect, he is also the one who is skeptical of the pod process, but she signs up anyway.

At first, he is a bit out of sorts she made this decision without him, but he accepts and steadily warms to the idea. In fact, he is the one who bonds with the incubation pod they carry home. Ironically, she starts experiencing the sort of fevered dreams associated with traditional pregnancy. Much to her surprise, she also develops a new-found appreciation for the genuine and the natural.

Talky films can interesting. Fortunately, Pod Generation is one of them. Admittedly, the arc of Barthes’ narrative is a bit flat, but she raises some heavy issues regarding science, nature, and authenticity. Her ostensive subject is motherhood, which is a big theme in itself, but a lot of the points the film raises could apply to topics.

It is also worth noting getting the right look for Pod Generation was almost as important to its success as it was for the Barbie movie, but it had a tiny fraction of that monstrosity’s budget. Production designer Clement Price-Thomas and art director Stephan Rubens convincingly create an ambiguously near-future world that feels slick and affluent, but also somewhat cold and impersonal.

Japan Cuts ’23: From the End of the World

Freud would be pretty impressed by Hana Shimon. The interpretation of her dreams could save the world from apocalyptic destruction. Of course, she is not really dreaming. She is traveling into the “Sea of Sentiment,” a realm that is as real as our own—and what happens there directly impacts our own world. It is not looking good for us. There are only two weeks until Armageddon, unless Shimon can save us, assuming we even deserve it in Kazuaki Kiriya’s From the End of the World, which screens tomorrow as part of this year’s Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film.

We need Shimon to save us, but she has it hard. Her parents died when she was seven and the grandmother who served as her guardian recently passed. She waits tables for money to live on. When she makes it to school, she is relentlessly bullied by the worst mean girl. Then Shogo Ezaki and Reiko Saiki show up from the National Police asking if she dreams much. She certainly will that night.

Suddenly, she finds herself transported to a black-and-white universe very much like feudal Japan, where she befriends Yuki, a soon-to-be orphan, thanks to the marauding ronin. When she tells Ezaki and Saiki about it, they immediately launch a pre-set contingency plan, which spares Japan great damage from a surprise earthquake.

It turns out there is a Millennium-like group in the National Police that understands how that dream world affects our universe and they have persuaded the Prime Minister to act on their warnings. Unfortunately, there is an ominous dream-walker sort of figure who can operate in both worlds—and he knows about Shimon. However, the greater danger to her might be greater from those who want to topple the current government, by exposing the PM’s dependence on a “fortune teller.”

End of the World is definitely a return to big idea, big spectacle genre films for Kiriya, after the English language production Last Knights, which was a lot of fun, but was not nearly as ambitious or significant. In contrast, this is a distinctly original conception of the end times. It incorporates some really crazy extremes that are too complex and too spoilery to get into here. It is safe to say this is a big film that is sure to inspire a lot of analysis over time.

Fantasia ’23: Restore Point

In the future, you still must pay your taxes. Death is a different matter—depending on the circumstances. A quasi-government agency can resurrect anyone who dies an untimely death, as long as they digitally backed themselves up within the last forty-eight hours. Legally, they cannot use a file more than two days old. There are practical scientific reasons for that, but they will be violated anyway in Robert Hloz’s Restore Point, which had its world premiere at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Nobody dies, if they take reasonable precautions. However, there are those who feel taking so much risk out of life devalues the experience of living, somewhat like in Tony Aloupis’s better-than-you-might-think I am Mortal. Police detective Em Trochinowska has a bone to pick with them, particularly the terrorist group River of Life. They killed her husband, after holding him past the forty-eight-hour mark.

Apparently, they also just murdered the scientific director of Restore Point, David Kurlstat, and his wife, after sabotaging their back-ups. However, Trochinowska unexpectedly gets the benefit of Kurlstat’s technical expertise when she discovers Restore Point illegally revived the scientist with a six-month-old bootleg. Unfortunately, there is a bit of a mind-body disconnect, which makes the new imperfect copy twitchy and nauseous.

It has been a while since there was a new Czech science fiction film, even though the Czechoslovakian film industry released many moody sf classics in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Ikarie XB-1. In some ways, the dystopian Restore Point very much feels like a throwback to that era. Hloz’s future urbanscape is particularly impressive, taking design-inspiration from the real-life postmodern structures of Shanghai and Dubai.