Future Shock (1994) User Reviews

Bill Paxton only.

[BloodTheTelepathicDog · 3/10 · 19 April 2005]

Three tales are told in this film, that seemed to have been shot without knowledge of this being a combined vignette film. The makers relate the three vignettes by having them all connected to shrink Martin Kove, although you never see some of the leads with Kove.

The first vignette has sexy Vivian Schilling, a woman afraid of everything under the sun(she makes Adrian Monk look brave), having a paranoia laced evening at home alone. You will literally scream at Vivian for doing some ridiculous things. She spends the majority of her time in a nighty which shows off her amazing features. But her film is the worst if not the most nail-biting.

The second vignette is owned by Bill Paxton as he portrays the roommate from Hell. His geeky roommate allows him to take complete advantage of him, and Bill does so whenever he can.

The last vignette was funny as a man fears that death will take him at any moment, much like his pal who choked to death on an olive.

Not very interesting, as the movie as a whole seems chopped together with very little thought involved. A must for Bill Paxton fans.

More wasted potential

[xterminal · 5/10 · 15 February 2001]

Future Shock (Eric Parkinson et al., 1993)

This could have been a fantastic movie. It's an anthology film set around the office of a therapist who's come up with a new method of hypnotherapy. Over the course of the day, he sees three of his truly screwed-up patients, subjects them to the hypnosis, and waits. We get to watch what happens during the waiting.

The writing is just shy of good. The acting is just shy of good (save a few memorable performances, most notably from Bill Paxton, back when his contract still allowed him to play sleazy bad guys; he's as good and rowdy in here as he is in Near Dark). The production is just shy of good. Unfortunately, it all adds up to bad, albeit bad in a kind of endearing way. The potential in each of these stories tends to get in the way of the sheer, mindless enjoyment. The exception is the last story, "Mr. Petrified Forest," a shaggy-dog story about a guy having a near-death experience who can't remember how he got outside the gates of heaven.

Ah, the potential. It's worth a free viewing if it pops up on TV, but don't go out of your way. **

Obscure Anthonlogy is Worth Digging Up

[jfrentzen-942-204211 · 5/10 · 3 February 2024]

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.

Future Shock is a rip off!

[jazzboy9 · 18 September 2010]

This movie is a compilation of three separate movies. The last one is "Mr. Petrified Forest", which is the Masters Thesis film of Matt Reeves, which he completed for his Masters in Film at USC. He fund raised, wrote, directed, cast, edited, etc., every aspect of "Mr. Petrified Forest". Subsequently, USC sold his Masters Thesis film, which was incorporated into this theatrical, commercial film. No one connected with "Mr. Petrified Forest" received any monetary compensation, including the actors, crew, director, writer, editor, etc,. when it was incorporated into this commercial film. USC should not have sold it!!!! Perhaps there are copyright infringement issues. It is an outrage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mind Altering Horror

[Takashi-3 · 2/10 · 6 August 2000]

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.

Make it stop!

[SheriffGeneFreak · 1/10 · 20 March 2006]

This is the single worst movie I have ever seen. Let me say that again: THIS IS THE SINGLE WORST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN.

It had all of the ear-marks of a bad movie: continuity errors, bad writing, bad acting, bad production value, bad music. I thought that there were a couple points to horror movies. The first is that it is supposed to be suspenseful enough to scare you. This movie gets and F in this category. The second point is that when a character dies, or something bad happens to them, we are supposed to care. This movie gets an F in this regard as well.

The first story, a woman gets mauled by wolves after being afraid that this would happen to her. The next story, an OCD guy dies from not being careful and talks to a dead friend of his. Oh, and then there is the horrific, nail-biting story of a bad roommate. Come on, could you pick topics a little more interesting and a little less common than being alone in a house, being anal-retentive, and having a roommate? Turns out all of these stories where hallucinations, virtual reality induced by a Doctor who in turn uses it himself. Wow, stupid.

Let me explain something, I enjoy watching bad horror movies and laughing at how bad they are. I couldn't do that with this one. It was utter pain to sit and watch. Do not under any circumstance watch this movie. You WILL regret it.

I'll say it's a shock!!!

[slowbrooo · 1/10 · 22 August 2000]

This movie still chills me to the bone thinking of it. This movie was not just bad as in low-budget, badly acted, etc. although it certainly WAS all of those things. The problem with this movie is that it seemed to be intentionally trying to annoy the viewer, and doing it with great success. What I want to know is, is this supposed to be a horror movie? I mean, it's definately horrifying, but not in the way horror movies are supposed to be. I could see the first segment trying to be horror and failing, but what the hell is the second segment? It's just annoying. The third segment is like watching an artsy student film, which amazingly enough makes it the least painful segment. It's an atrocity that this movie isn't way low on the bottom 100, so get your votes (1/10) in people!! I know some people gave this good reviews, but, well, they're lying in a sadistic attempt to trick you. Trust me, it is impossible to like this movie. The only benefit of this movie is an amazing life-extending effect: it feels like you've been watching this movie for years after only the first half hour has passed.

Garbage

[xxxcandyboyxxx · 2/10 · 15 March 2000]

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.

Bizarre, Foretelling Sci-Fi/Horror

[gwnightscream · 4/10 · 5 November 2021]

This 1994 sci-fi/horror anthology film features 3 tales/segments with a psychiatrist using technology to study his patients' fears/dreams that could happen in future events. Martin Kove (The Karate Kid), Bill Paxton (Weird Science), James Karen (Return of the Living Dead) and Scott Thompson (Police Academy) appear. This is a bizarre flick and the segment with Paxton is the most memorable. You could give this a try if you like sci-fi or horror.

Severely underrated, an effective anthology.

[theblackscythe · 7/10 · 1 August 2014]

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.

One of the worst anthologies ever.

[b_kite · 2/10 · 29 March 2022]

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.

Scary as hell!

[plazaent · 10/10 · 19 March 2000]

One woman, by herself in a house for 45-minutes of screen time, doesn't sound like a formula to hold you on the edge-of-your-seat... but FUTURE SHOCK is truly as thrilling as they come! Writer / star Vivian Schilling takes on those little fears we all suppress, and enlarges them to terrifying proportions, so don't watch this film alone!

Surprisingly but not shockingly good

[christofirebarrett · 6/10 · 9 March 2022]

The framing device of this anthology is a form of therapy mildly similar to the psychedelic therapies of the near future, but not really, but kind of. Patients will look into a glowing little purple orb, and then be passed out on the couch having a convincing fake "therapeutic" experience in their heads, while the therapist just sits there. The first patient is extremely paranoid, so when she looks into the ball, her life seems to be going on normally, until she gets home and is attacked by a pack of wild dogs, but after running around for a while, she discovers that the dogs aren't wild and there is only one of them, a neighbor dog named sparky. She is cured. The next guy is also extremely paranoid and in his future shock he returns to his apartment and meets his new Roomate, played by the beautiful Bill Paxton. Bill Paxton Roomate is a bully and steals the protagonists bed and leaves a mess and brings home a satans sl@t. After these intolerable behaviors culminate with that sl@t being found dead and our hero taking blame, our guy goes and buys a gun, drives to his apartment and puts the barrel to Bills head. Protagonist is shot by some cops who are after him for the sl@t murder and winds up in the hospital. Paxton kills him in the hospital and leaves a cig in the guys mouth, asking main characters mom for his deposit back or something. Pretty good but he wakes up in the doctors office feeling no better. Doctor says see you next week. I wonder if, had he shot Bill Paxtons head in, he would have been cured? Anyway, the next one is kind of weird, directed by Matt Reeves of the new Batman and "The Paul Bearer" starring David Schwimmer (worth checking out), our new hero is another guy scared of everything, and explains that he is hesitant to use the machine, but goes in anyway. He wakes up dead, bleeding from the head, soon he is in heaven having a near death experience. "Sleepwalk" plays and he's talking to some dead friends. This one is really cool, better shot than the rest of the movie and much more narratively daring. It's also surprisingly funny. Overall though it lacks coherence, and the established fact that he's not actually near death, but in VR, takes the punch out of everything. It ends with the doctor ominously staring into the orb, as background noise begins to distort. Not implying anything specific, but I guess you can get addicted to VR world if your use isn't controlled by a third party? This movie is pretty good, and kind of predicts psychedelic therapies of the future, I guess? I recommend it to you. Watch it.

Future Schlock

[stoob0t · 2/10 · 1 November 2021]

In this modern age of streaming, an insane variety and a vast archive of films are available right at the touch of a button. It makes it easier than ever to stumble across a hidden gem or lost work of genius. It also, however, makes it easier to land on a turd of a film which should have become a distant memory lost to time. This film is undoubtedly the latter.

The production is as low cost as they come; walls are seemingly made from wobbly cardboard, everywhere is absurdly sparse because there was no budget for props, the film itself seems to have been shot to a well used VHS on long-play.

The script and dialogue are as awful as they come. Almost every line feels completely unnatural and forced. The acting is no better.

There are three vignettes which make up the film, each as ludicrous as the last. Strung together with a very loose and thin thread, which also makes very little sense at all. Bill Paxton makes an appearance, which gave me a little hope, but those hopes were soon dashed. It feels like he turned up on a lunchbreak as a favour to someone and really wanted his part over and done with.

There's some use of visual effects, but similarly to other aspects, these are done as cheaply as humanly possible.

It feels like there were probably some good ideas here, but they definitely weren't executed.

That said, it could make for a good party film for drinking games: although if you took a drink every time there's a continuity error you may well be dead before the credits roll.

"Is this going to be like The Lawnmower Man? That was a cool movie."

[Backlash007 · 1 January 2006]

~Spoiler~

Future Shock is another terrible anthology film that is a bore to sit through. We're given the standard three stories and in each, nothing happens. And I mean NOTHING. All of the stories deal with a fear; fear of the outside world, fear of bullies, and fear of death. And they're thrown together by a wraparound story involving a new form of psychiatry. Each segment ends with the main character finding out they've been in some kind of advanced virtual reality. So how can we even care about any of this when it's not even happening? Some good actors that are wasted in this crap include Bill Paxton, James Karen, Brion James, and Martin Kove. Avoid this.

Shows lots of promise, delivers chills & chuckles, too

[MajorFilms · 10/10 · 7 December 2009]

Okay, this film probably deserves 7 out of 10 stars, but I've voted for "10" to help offset the misleading rating from the handful of bozo's who gave this film zero or 1 star reviews. Each of the segments for this anthology shows great potential and promise for the talented filmmakers... three of whom have gone on to achieve notable success in big-time Hollywood productions. Performances range from rough all the way up to completely impressive, with notable turns by Bill Paxton, James Karen, Vivian Schilling and Brion James. Martin Kove may be a big melodramatic as the psychotic hypnotist with the bizarro strobe-lamp, and Lance August seems intentionally dimwitted as an unsuspecting lab victim. But overall, it's got some great laughs and some genuinely scary moments. Definitely worth seeing, so judge for yourself!

Future Schlock

[horror7777 · 27 August 2001]

FUTURE SHOCK is complete garbage although it definitely had potential. Certain scenes are great but I was turned off by the whole virtual reality thing and by some of the incredibly bad acting. The actor that played Dr. Langdon looked like the late actor Michael Landon and I thought that the character name was actually Dr. Landon. Coincidentily, Michael Landon died in Malibu, California where some of this movie was made. The best actor in this sad film had to be James Karen who gave yet another hillarious performance as Kefka, the mute boss. Overall, not BAD BAD, but not as good as it could've been. I strongly believe that it was the whole virtual reality thing that sunk FUTURE SHOCK into future schlock-**1/2out of****.

Wow!!

[socialxcancer · 10/10 · 26 May 2021]

All I Have To Say Is Wow!. Future Shock Is So Cool. Very Eye opening and Exciting Every Minute Of The Movie. A hell of a Anthology. Very Fun!, I Got The DVD for 2.45 . The best 2.45 cents I've ever spent. What a Gem! . I enjoyed all the stories. Bill Paxton was a real treat to see. Love that guy. I highly recommend this!!!

It's not all bad. Just mostly.

[Curtis G. · 10 February 2001]

The other reviewers have gotten close, but they've missed it: This movie takes two entirely unrelated short films (I'd guess student projects), adds them together with writer/"actress" Vivian Schilling's newly-filmed segment, and links them all with a weak "virtual reality" device plotline. So the producers only had to shoot a third of a movie. And the bonus is, they get to claim that Bill Paxton is a major player in the film. As far as the segments, I particularly enjoyed the "afterlife" one with the guy who chokes on olives, if memory serves. Still, the other reviewers sum it up pretty well: it's bad. Very bad.