Future Shock (1994) Reviews

• Scary as hell!

  plazaent2000-03-19

  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!

• Mind Altering Horror

  Takashi-32000-08-06

  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.

• Shows lots of promise, delivers chills & chuckles, too

  MajorFilms2009-12-07

  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!

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

  Backlash0072006-01-01

  ~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.

• Severely underrated, an effective anthology.

  theblackscythe2014-08-01

  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.