Agency (1979)
Subliminal Advertising Brainwashing Thriller
Lee Majors starring thriller set around the 1970s fad over subliminal advertising. The film fails to generate much in the way of thrills.
Brainwashing
Antisocial (2013)
Zombie Apocalypse Via Social Media
A zombie apocalypse that occurs via social networking sites??? To the film’s credit, it makes such a wacky idea plausible but the low-budget leads to a zombie apocalypse that mostly occurs off-stage
Batman: Bad Blood (2016)
Comic-Book Superhero/Animation
Another of the DC Universe Original Animated Films. This is less a Batman film than a Batman Family film, a mixed effort that sidelines Batman for much of the show
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
War Between Comic-Book Superheroes
Less Captain America 3 than The Avengers 3 – the entire film has been conceived as a massive superheroic punch-up. The results move with an exhilarating pace, but the Russo Brothers haven’t yet mastered Joss Whedon’s hand with character humour
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Future Thugs/Brainwashing
One of the key films by Stanley Kubrick, centred around ultra-violent thugs in a near-future setting. Everybody was outraged at Kubrick choreographing scenes of violence to classical music but the film has a considerable brilliance and very dark sense of humour
Conspiracy Theory (1997)
Flaky Conspiracy Theorist Comedy/Thriller
This should have been a witty film – Mel Gibson as a conspiracy nut who discovers one of his theories is true and is hunted by government agents – but the result is a confused mess that turns into an overblown action vehicle
Cypher (2002)
Brainwashing Reality Bender
Vincenzo Natali’s second film, a cool and superbly disquiet thriller about corporate brainwashing and espionage that comes with a series of Philip K. Dick-ian reality bending twists
Death Warmed Up (1984)
Mad Scientist/Zombie Splatter
The first horror film from New Zealand, a gore drenched effort about a mad scientist creating zombies. Directed by much energy even if it suffers a complete lack of plot
Disturbing Behavior (1998)
High School Mind Control Experiments
A smart and modestly enjoyable film that plays like a high school version of The Stepford Wives where troubled students are being brainwashed and turned into preppy high-achievers
Dr M (1990)
Mind-Controlling Criminal Mastermind
Claude Chabrol updates Fritz Lang super-villain Dr Mabuse to a millennial West Berlin where Alan Bates is a tv mogul who masterminds a mass suicide cult via messages hidden inside advertising
The Electronic Monster (1960)
Sinister Dream-Programming Institute
The very first dreamscape film, prefiguring many other films that have taken up the theme, most notably Inception. By contrast this is a dull affair that lets most of the possibilities slip through its hands.
Final Mission (1994)
Virtual Reality Brainwashing of Pilots
Top Gun meets Virtual Reality in a rather ridiculous plot about Air Force pilots being introduced to a new virtual targeting system that turns them into brainwashed killers
Girl Next (2021)
Imprisonment Thriller/Mad Science
This involves girls abducted into a sex trafficking operation, along with mad science and possible cloning. Quite what it is all about is a good question
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2014)
Future Social Revolution
The third The Hunger Games film starts in with a more brooding complexity but with the book being split in two parts, the story feels more thinly drawn and comes to an abrupt end just when it starts to get interesting
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)
Future Social Revolution
The finale of the saga comes with a tough, gritty edge that make it the best directed of the series. On the other hand, it builds well only to arrive at an ending that goes oddly sideways and throws sympathies to the wind
In Like Flint (1967)
Spy Film
Sequel to the James Coburn-starring Our Man Flint, one of the James Bond parodies of the 1960s. Unlike its predecessor, this one is less interested in the humour and seems to be taking the silliness seriously
Interstella 5555 (2003)
Anime/Intergalactic Rock Band
Dance music duo Daft Punk collaborate with anime directors to create an animated space opera based on their album Discovery about an intergalactic rock band and their fight to save the galaxy
Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
Girl Rock Group's Adventures/Cartoon in Live Action
A live-action film based on the animated tv series about a girl rock band who originally appeared in Archie comics, this gets buried under its own efforts to be cutely ironic
Killer Tomatoes Strike Back! (1991)
Genre Spoof
This was the third of the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes films. This hits an appealingly silly and wilfully ridiculous note that makes it the best of the sequels.
Looker (1981)
Virtual Models
Michael Crichton’s works are about fears of science and technology going amok. Here he attempts to address tv and advertising in a film about virtual models but the ideas in his script are muddled
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Brainwashed Assassin/Political Satire
John Frankenheimer film. concerning a Communist plot for creating a brainwashed assassin, Frankenheimer shoots with stark and blackly funny effect and this has duly become a cult classic
The Mind Benders (1962)
Brainwashing Thriller
Fascinating British film about an experiment in brainwashing where scientist Dirk Bogarde is made to change his personality in an isolation tank
1984 (1956)
Dystopia
The first film adaptation of the classic George Orwell dystopian work. The brilliance of the book only comes through in occasional moments but mostly the film befalls the leaden hand of director Michael Anderson
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
Dystopia
Superb adaptation of the George Orwell novel that was actually shot in the months and year that the book takes place. Orwell’s future is imagined as a bleak post-War dystopia given life by a superlative cast
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
James Bond Film
The sixth James Bond film where Sean Connery was replaced by Australian model George Lazenby who had never acted before. Lazenby is a disliked Bond but that tends does stand in the way of the fact that this is a fine character-driven Bond film with some of the best action sequences of the series
Project X (1968)
Future Mental Probing/Reality Simulations
Gimmick master William Castle makes an SF films about scientists engaged in simulations and mental probing to obtain secrets from a man’s mind
Radio Free Albemuth (2014)
Philip K. Dick Adaptation/Possible Messages from Aliens
Adaptation of an autobiographical Philip K. Dick book that he wrote in an attempt to make sense of a series of bizarre hallucinations, this long-rumoured film manages, despite a low-budget, to mainline the brain-twisting nature of Dick’s writing better than any other adaptation
Repligator (1996)
Experiment Turns Men Into Women
A film about a teleportation experiment that has the unforeseen effect of turning men into woman and then into human-alligator hybrids. We are in extremely bad movie stakes here
Scanner Cop (1994)
Psychic Powers
Third of the sequels to Scanners, this stars Daniel Quinn as a police officer who discovers scanner abilities
Simon (1980)
Fake Alien Comedy
A directorial debut from Woody Allen co-writer Marshall Brickman, an offbeat comedy where scientists hypnotise Alan Arkin into believing he is an alien
Soldier (1998)
Programmed Soldier Becomes Self-Aware
Kurt Russell gives a fine performance as a programmed soldier who discovers emotions but under Paul W.S. Anderson the rest of the big-budgeted film collapses into over-inflated cliches
Strange Behavior (1981)
Mad Scientist/Mind Control Experiments
Modestly effective film in which teens in a small town go berserk and begin killing people as a result of experiments being conducted at the university psychology department
Subliminal Seduction (1996)
Sinister Brainwashing Plot
Ian Ziering stars in a B-budget ripoff of The Stepford Wives where he discovers that a computer company is encoding brainwashing messages in a videogame
Submerged (2005)
Action Film/Mind Control
Steven Seagal submarine action where he tackles a terrorist who has perfected mind control techniques
They Live (1988)
Reality-Manipulating Aliens
John Carpenter makes an alien invasion film that works as a biting satire of Reaganomics in which aliens are manipulating reality to increase their profit shares in Earth
Timebomb (1991)
Brainwashing/Action
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
Zeta One (1969)
Softcore Spy Film/Invading Alien Women
This wants to be a little of everything – part 1960s spy film, part British sex comedy, and another part an sf film involving invading alien women – and proves none too satisfying at any of them. The softcore scenes featuring semi-clad alien women are fairly much allowed to overrun the show