Thursday, December 12, 2013

Movie Review: Upstream Color, the Thinking Person's Zombie Flick

I don't know what to say about this one.  Upstream Color, from the guy who brought us Primer, is  engrossing, in a put-the-pieces-back-together way, kind of an unfun version of The Hangover.  But it's much, much worse.  It's not a lost night of wild fun, it's a grand tour from the inside of the life cycle of a mind controlling parasite, focusing on the relationship of two of its hosts and their stories, and the criminals who use the parasite – or does the parasite use the criminals?

Here, watch the trailer.

Bottom line: 3.5 stars out of 4.  I won't drag on this review any longer when this reviewer says everything else that I'd say.

Added thrills: While this movie is fictional (I hope), it just sticks together a bunch of horrifying real-world things, like scopolamine and the criminals who dose people with it, mind-controlling parasitic fungi, and the whole Haitian zombie thing.  Want to have fun dabbling in this on yourself without all the chemicals?  Here you go!  It's been said before regarding modern physics, but it's worth repeating in the current context: not only is the real world stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

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