Unfocused, Experimental Sci-Fi On The Tube Is Either Total Ingenuity Or Total Nonsense
Written by Robert Scucci | Published
Have you ever looked at something so confusing that you don't know how to put it into words? in 2012 Hyperfutura it falls squarely in that wheelhouse, and I haven't decided whether it's lightning in a bottle or lightning in a pan. It's a mind trip that focuses on an unemployed man named Adam (Eric Kopatz), who signs up for a three-day paid trial, and everything goes from bad to worse. The best way to describe what happens in this film is to compare it to that scene A Clockwork Orangewhen Alex opened his eyes while watching a wall of televisions, he was forced to witness and absorb all the horrors of the world as deeply as humanly possible.
The problem here is that there is no real agenda or purpose. Every movie site claims that Adam becomes a replica of the first imperfect, half-machine, but writer-director James O'Brien shakes the whole thing up with such reckless abandon that I'd argue there isn't even a plot here. While I agree that some of the visuals look good, they are just like a doomscroll of a movie that visits annoying moments in history while our protagonist is needlessly tortured throughout the movie's runtime.
Luckily, this solo effort is only an hour long, so at least you can go into this knowing that any suffering you'll experience will be temporary.
Genius Or Guess? Honestly I Can't Say
Here is the whole plot Hyperfutura: Adam is fired from his job as a factory machinist. He sees a suspicious flyer hanging on a telephone pole saying that if he signs up for a three-day medical examination, he will be compensated. He shows up, is given a pill by a clearly corrupt doctor (Gregory Kiem), and is watched in a surveillance room by a guy known only as The Technician (Brando McClure), who's so badass that he even has a broken mustache to drive the point home.
Adam meets a woman named Simone (Karen Corona), who undergoes the same treatment, which, as far as I can tell, involves being hit with plastic instruments while electrocuted, drug-induced anesthesia, and overstimulation, depending on how far along they are in the process. I think there is a romantic bond here, but I can't tell for sure. I'm not lying when I say that this movie is basically an hour of stock footage with distorted effects while a bunch of convoluted, catastrophic world events are thrown into the editing software as carelessly as possible.
It's Cool To Watch You, Minute
I wanted to check Hyperfutura because I like the vibe pieces that work in the fugue mode. In my mind, I was expecting another movie in the same way Beyond the Dark Rainbowwhich also has a barebones structure but is so vibrant that it will put your mind straight. This plays out a lot like a film student who just got a new computer, loaded with free editing software, and decides to upload as many photos as the free trial will allow. For this joke to work, the free trial allows you to provide a final product that is exactly the same length as this movie, but not one minute.
Hyperfutura's The Wikipedia page cites influences such as Ed Wood, The Church of the SubGenius, and even references James Orin Incandenza, the legendary filmmaker who lives in the pages of David Foster Wallace. Infinite Jest. I've spent the last two weeks revisiting the audiobook after reading the novel for the first time in college, and I fail to see any connection here other than the possibility that whoever gathered the details of that idea to drop the name in this fashion will give the film some power.
Hyperfutura good to watch for about a minute. If you can't make it through the full hour, you'll probably wish you'd grabbed a few screenshots to make a cool desktop wallpaper, but other than that, I wouldn't call it a movie. And if you're going for that weird “experimental, drug-addled, soul-destroying odyssey drenched in neon and wildly different filters” kind of vibe, there's plenty of brainrot on Instagram that does it better and only takes 30 seconds out of your day. Personally, I would recommend Nutter Butter's social media pages because they easily pull off what James O'Brien is trying so hard to do here.
From this writing, you can broadcast Hyperfutura free on Tubi. Seriously, don't pay for it.
