The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Altered Memory concerns works dealing with the manipulation, implantation and erasure of human memory. For works dealing with accidental or deliberately blanked memory see Films About Amnesia.
This concerns stories where people are given or find that they have artificially implanted memories; or where they discover that sections of their memory have been erased or altered in some way. A frequent story trope in SF is of someone who wakes up with a blank memory and sets out to find who they are.
There are also a number of SF films about devices that can allow the recording and playback of memory. Other SF works feature a plot about the transplant of another person’s memory whereupon the stories usually become thrillers about solving the other person’s murder.
A children’s fantasy adventure that never strays beyond the environs of an American high school and comes with the lowbrow slapstick, excruciating comic caricatures and incredibly bad effects
The Divergent series is a fundamentally implausible scenario for people that think horoscopes are a profound insight into human nature. This is the most interesting of the films and gives us an imaginative future world
A group of people whose memories have been blanked wake up in a mysterious labyrinth and have to survive death traps and each other. A promising mix of Cube and The Hunger Games killed by clumsy storytelling
Film based on a full-length Swedish SF poem that concerns the despair, emptiness and strange societies that emerge among those aboard a spaceship that is thrown off course
Andrew Niccol is one of the consistently intelligent and original directors out there. This, set in a world where mass surveillance has erased the concept of anonymity, is the most fascinating and original depiction of a future in some time
A new Russian-made version of the Baba Yaga folktale where the old witch is rewritten as a seductive nanny stealing children and their parents’ memories of them
Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa is known for his intensely uncanny and bafflingly cryptic horror films. Here he makes an alien invasion film, although a minimalist and very different one that proves quite fascinating
Blumhouse film in which an initial plot about a man suffering amnesia undergoes a twist to become a body theft story
Ridley Scott’s film was not a success at the time but has since been regarded as a SF masterpiece, one of the defining screen treatments of android themes while the incredibly dense Cyberpunk vision of the future was copied by many subsequent films
Blade Runner is a landmark classic but this is well worthwhile sequel from Denis Villeneuve that recreates the fascinating Cyberpunk world in more detail and expands out on the themes laid down in the original. Made with impeccably beautiful detail
That starts out seeming a standard mindless action film in which Vin Diesel is resurrected as an augmented super-soldier only for everything we assume to get turned on its head in interesting ways
Highly ambitious film for its day, this concerns a memory-recording device that manages to accidentally record the experience of someone dying. Well worth seeing today, including being one of the first films to depict the internet
Ulli Lommel film in which Suzanne Love undergoes experimental brain surgery only to start receiving memories from the donor, a woman who was murdered
This feels like a weepie Disease of the Week drama where Elijah Wood is an amnesiac placed in a hospital ward of terminal patients before the film arrives at an SF conceptual twist
After calls to do so, The MCU offers up their first superheroine with very unexceptional results. A competent enough effort but DC’s Wonder Woman easily blows everything this tries to do out of the water
Sequel to Tarsem Singh’s The Cell that feels made by people who haven’t even seen the original. The original’s fascinating journey into dream terrain is replaced by a dull psychic with a link to a serial killer plot
A Chinese Ghost Story was one of the greatest Hong Kong fantasy films; this remake gets everything wrong. The aerial combat scenes are replaced by CGI, the characters rewritten and the Buddhist elements eliminated
French Cyberpunk film with a detective investigating the murder of an illegal immigrant girl and finding a blackmarket in stolen and transplanted memories
A standout Michael Winterbottom film set in a fascinatingly detailed and well conceived future dominated by genetic laws where Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton conduct an illicit affair
A family try to make it through the woods in the aftermath of a mysterious catastrophe while hunted by something unseen. Sort of a zombie apocalypse film without any zombies where the terrors are psychological
Film adaptation of writer Whitley Strieber’s true-life claims to have been abducted by aliens. I am not sure if the film convinces us of Strieber’s claims but what is interesting is the thoughtful way it examines the phenomenon
The Dc Comics character John Constantine was made into an animated web series that was compiled as this film. One is quite taken aback at how much more edgy and adult this is than most of DC’s animated offerings
High-concept Jon Favreau directed film that has a winning title concept, overflows with star power and is made on a big budget. But the script feels like it had no idea what to do after setting up its title conceptual mash-up
Australian effort that seems to follow the path of Aliens/Resident Evil with soldiers venturing into a laboratory of amok monsters before a Philip K. Dick-ian twist on what we think is happening
Everything indicates this should have been a hit – an impressive star line-up, big polished action sequences – only it tanked. Much has been assembled in the service of a hackneyed idea where the memories of an FBI agent are implanted into criminal Kevin Costner
This has an intriguing premise where a group awake from cryogenic suspension with their memories blank as someone among their number now begins killing them
From Alex Proyas and David S. Goyer, this has an astonishing conceptual audacity in its plot dealing with shifting realities and transplanted memories, making it arguably the finest science-fiction film of the 1990s
Adapted from a series of Young Adult books concerning a group of children with psychic powers on the run in a dystopian future, this failed to find the audience it sought
Actress Olivia Wilde creates a variant on The Stepford Wives set in an idyllic 1950s town where the women seem to be prisoners. Wilde is making a feminist parable but the plausibility of her SF scenario falls apart
The appealing idea of a romantic comedy/road movie where both characters are zombies. The plot is all over the place but the premise is conducted with some amusement
An often hauntingly made film set in a world where the populace is affected by periodic amnesia and memory resets. Memento in effect recast as an apocalyptic story
The premise of a small town inhabited by the former inmates of an asylum, suggests a variant on Poe’s The System of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether. The execution is complete amateurism on every level
Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman collaborate on a mind-bending film about erased memories. The film comes with a series of characteristic eccentricities and whiplash twists that are positively ingenious
A Marvel Comics offering that is an adaptation of a team created by the greatest comic-book writer/artist of all time. On screen however, this emerges with strangely flat and moribund results
An undeniably imaginative SF film in which scientist Sasha Roiz to invent a device to view memory only for things to go wrong and become trapped in someone else’s memories
Spinoff from the Harry Potter films – unlike those, written directly for the screen and feels more like it belongs there. The US locations open the story up, while the magic creatures and new ensemble cast prove a delight
Third of the Fantastic Beasts films, this comes as a mix of ennui with the franchise and promise. It feels like about right now would be a good time to retire the series
A film that received great acclaim at awards season. Anthony Hopkins is a dementia-ridden senior and we experience his state of mind subjectively in a constantly shifting sense of what is real
Fine and underrated Sf film set in a future where memory recording devices are commonplace with Robin Williams as a man whose job is to edit these for funeral services
Reality bending film where an amnesiac Sean Patrick Flanery wakes up in a warehouse and learns he is a scientist who holds the antidote to a pandemic. But all is not it seems.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a director who specialises in cryptic spooky horror films. This is a sequel to his earlier alien invasion film Before We Vanish about aliens come to steal concepts from people’s minds
Julianne Moore discovers her late son has been erased from photos and people’s memories eventually leading her to an explanation involving mysterious aliens
This US-made live-action adaptation of the cult anime is a disaster on every level. The original’s haunting meditation on the dividing line between machine and human is diluted to being no more than a Cyberpunk action film
Classic anime from Mamoru Oshii, a Cyberpunk work with a heroine who is a cyborg special forces officer, a work that delves deeply into the philosophical questions of what is human and what is machine
Reboot of the Ghost in the Shell series in a quartet of prequel stories. This funnels the essence of Cyberpunk superbly, creating a dazzling world with cyborgised security services fighting terrorists hacking people’s brains
Another anime film in the Ghost in the Shell franchise. This was the fifth episode of the Ghost in the Shell: Arise reboot series that received a theatrical release
Another adaptation of a classic Young Adult book, this merely substitutes well-worn dystopian tropes and comes out feeling like Divergent by way of Pleasantville
Film with a literally off-the-wall premise in which Ryan Kwanten is trapped in a rest stop bathroom with a Lovecraftian deity that speaks through a glory hole in the next stall
Originally a tv movie but released to theatres. Michael Sarrazin is man who survives an explosion at a laboratory with amnesia only to be accused of being a spy and end in a labyrinth of brainwashing and identity confusion
This is one of my best films of 2022, a standout work concerning a demon that invades dreams and then erases all memory of the person. Shot during Covid lockdown and haunted by the sense of isolation
Sixth of the Harry Potter films, this feels like a step back from what its predecessor built up. The film suffers from trying to cram all of J.K. Rowling’s book into its running time and ends up being frustratingly mannered
Mike Flanagan follows up the hit of The Haunting of Hill House with a mini-series that adapts another classic work The Turn of the Screw out into a similar kind of cross-generational ghost story. The results are extraordinary
Sequel to the Steve Reeves-starring Hercules where Hercules is wooed by an evil queen after drinking the Waters of Forgetfulness. Spectacular but stolid
This comes with an interesting idea about an infection that links all the infectees together into a gestalt of shared memories. From the director of Brightburn
Robert Rodriguez makes a film with Ben Affleck as a detective dealing with a man who can control others’ minds. However, this develops into a mind twister of considerable reality bending proportions
Set in the aftermath of the apocalypse, a film about the oddball friendship between misanthropic Peter Dinklage and pixie-ish Elle Fanning
Pixar’s venture into sequels in the last few years have resulted in not complete disappointments but works playing off past successes that have all been lesser than their originals. This is one sequel that came with much anticipation but it too must be counted as another disappointment
Reality bender with a man held in an automated prison where he must outsmart the prison’s A.I. in order to escape
Another remake that nobody asked for. The 1990 deathdream film is reworked in a script that ditches almost all of the afterlife themes and instead seems to want to make a drama about veterans addicted to reality-blurring drugs
Another of the animated DC Comics films in which various of their regular characters find themselves incarnated in simulated combat arenas
Live-action English language adaptation of an anime. The original was a cause of considerable controversy for its copious sex and violence; here we get no more than an anodyne action movie that is little more than a version of The Punisher cast with a teenage girl
Dramatised film based on the popular conspiracy theory that people are living in an alternate timeline where their memories have been edited and that we are all living in a simulation a la The Matrix
Little-known SF film with Billy Zane in a dystopian future involving Virtual Reality tech and implanted memories. Like Total Recall rewritten as an episode of Miami Vice
Sequel that turns a witty original into overblown slapstick that never consists of anything more than absurd gags with aliens and technology popping up from behind everyday objects
A huge box-office hit in its day, this comedy turns UFO coverup conspiracy of
The original Men in Black was a witty parody of alien coverup conspiracy paranoia; the sequels became slapstick films about pop-up aliens and hi-tech gadgets hidden behind everyday things. This offers a new cast line-up but little else that is new
It would be safe to say that without Inception there would be no Mindscape, which involves people entering memories rather than dreams but is similar in many other ways. Where this fails is in having no interest in the sf potential of the idea beyond using it as springboard for a thriller plot
Film that takes place across three future eras that questions what happens when Virtual Reality produces artificial memories more vivid than real world ones
A Young Adult fantasy adaptation that hits the screens with a tired seen-it-all-before feeling – of a Harry Potter wannabe having been repackaged with the brooding teen romanticism of the Twilight series. Nothing about the film enthuses, while its director gives it an indifferent handling that fails to animate any of the material
Sequel to The Neverending Story made with a better budget that delivers some amazing work with sets and creature designs but is killed with a script that discards the metaphors and complex level of meta-fiction hat drove the original
A low-budget film served by some witty fanboy humour, decent fight choreography and unexpectedly good acting
This falls short of being a great science-fiction film by a hairs breadth. Not the big space/action film it was sold as, more a Philip K. Dickian conceptual breakthrough film that seems to have borrowed large chunks of its set-up from Moon
Australian SF film about the development of a set of eyedrops that allow the recipient to experience a set of preprogrammed virtual memories. The film does nothing with the idea beyond rehashing Total Recall-like reality games
Japanese film that has overtones of Sliding Doors as a man finds he leads two different parallel lives
This Philip K. Dick adaptation has a great premise – Ben Affleck is an engineer with a blanked memory blanked only to find he has left himself clues from the future of things that are starting to come true. Alas, this is reduced to an action vehicle in the hands of John Woo
Steven Seagal makes an SF film. Even more bizarrely, Seagal plays the villain for one of the few times in his career, namely the dictator of a dystopian future. An overweight and aging Seagal has a handful of scenes philosophising, while the bulk of the film is a super-soldier plot carried by others
Low-budget occult film about guests at a motel trapped in a mysterious twilight zone. A work sits between the cheap and occasionally effective
Gimmick master William Castle makes an SF films about scientists engaged in simulations and mental probing to obtain secrets from a man’s mind
A positively ingenious film about psychic powers that comes with an enormous conceptual joy in seeing the ways the various powers can be combined
This comes with a fascinatingly original premise – man wakes up with complete amnesia and finds that he has the ability to kill anyone within thirty feet of him. The case of a film that holds attention with a captivating and unusual plot and a series of constant whiplash reversals
Film about a device that can record and play back memory. This comes with a reasonable cast but the great disappointment is the idea is never used for anything more than a mundane murder mystery
Lisa Joy, co-creator of tv’s Westworld, directs a work of future noir in an ingenious plot involving a memory recording device and Hugh Jackman obsessed with a missing woman
Whatever you want to say about his acting ability, Keanu Reeves represents a cool and has smarts in the projects he takes on. So when he takes a producing role as here, you feel it is a project you should pay attention to. Instead, the cloning film that he makes is absolutely laughable and should contend for an award for the SF film with the least plausible science in it
A pneumatically inflated heroine fights the machines amid a standard array of space opera and post-apocalyptic future tropes
Stylish but not always coherent South Korean near-future thriller about a comic-book artist, a hit woman and an amnesia drug
Tarsem Singh is one of the most extraordinary visual stylists at work today. The disappointment here is that he has abandoned this to make a regular chase and shootout film that any other director could have. What we get is an uncredited rehash of the Rock Hudson film Seconds stripped down to an action film
A conceptual puzzle film – people wake up in a facility with no memory of who they are – reminiscent of Cube with the smoke monsters from Lost thrown in. Unfortunately, this is too low-budget to create much mystery and the big reveal is not a terribly interesting one
Another work of Russian dark fantasy where a man asks a witch for a spell to help his wife, only to get very different results than intended
The second film from Duncan Jones, this places Jake Gyllenhaal through a Groundhog Day scenario as he is forced to relive the same eight minutes in order to find who planted a bomb on a train
Sony’s Spider-Man franchise ingeniously competes with Marvel’s shared universe by bringing all their previous incarnations of Spider-Man together
A Kathryn Bigelow directed Cyberpunk film scripted by James Cameron concerning an illicit technology that can replay memories. This offers a powerful vision of a socially divided L.A. on the eve of the millennium
Shot back-to-back with the first Christopher Reeve film, this then became a mess behind the scenes. The end result emerges fairly well with the show dominated by the magnificent Phantom Zones villains and giving depth to the Superman-Lois relationship
SF film in which a terminally ill Mahershala Ali has a clone copy created to take his place but then begins to have second thoughts
A horror anthology featuring episodes from seven different directors. As with other anthologies, the episodes vary in quality, ranging between the so-so, the mostly quite good and one standout segment, although it should be noted that not all are horror stories
Action film in which an agent tries to prevent a nuclear arms deal after being given a memory-erasing drug
A live-action film based on a popular Japanese young adult novel that has been filmed multiple times before. This is a rather dull film that fails to do anything terribly interesting with its time travel premise
Action film from Avi Nesher that comes with a solid and satisfying punch. Michael Biehn is a mild-mannered clockmaker who suddenly discovers he is a brainwashed assassin
Nick Willing conducts the first of his SF revampings of popular tales. Here The Wizard of Oz is reworked into a Steampunk fantasy with startling reinterpetations of the familiar characters
Adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story is killed by being turned into an Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle and by director Paul Verhoeven’s burying the reality bending subtleties of the story under bludgeoning ultra-violence
I was never a particular fan of the Schwarzenegger original and this improves on it somewhat. This is far better conceived as an action film with some amazing Cyberpunk designs. On the other hand, the two decades interim has made the story’s Philip K. Dick-ian reality bendings seem commonplace