Welcome to the Sci-Fi Clinic of Existential Confusion
If Alterscape were a person, it would be that philosophy major at a house party who corners you in the kitchen to explain how emotions are just electromagnetic frequencies — while you desperately search for an excuse to leave. Written and directed by Serge Levin, this 2018 “science fiction horror” film promises a cerebral descent into the mind, emotions, and metaphysical reality. What it delivers instead is 105 minutes of pretentious mumbling, strobe lights, and Michael Ironside staring at people like he’s wondering if this is really where his career was supposed to end up.
It won the Philip K. Dick Best Feature award, which is either proof of cosmic irony or evidence that the award judges were trapped in one of the film’s experiments themselves.
The Setup: One Man, One Emotion Machine, No Plot
The story (and I use that term generously) follows Sam Miller, played by Charles Baker — best known as Skinny Pete from Breaking Bad, now condemned to the saddest laboratory since Resident Evil: Budget Cuts Edition. Sam is a man so miserable that his attempt at suicide feels less like a cry for help and more like the most relatable part of the movie.
After being “rescued,” he’s recruited into a top-secret scientific experiment where researchers — led by Dr. Julian Loro (Michael Ironside, cashing a check and a half) — attempt to “fine-tune human emotions.” Essentially, they want to hack happiness the same way Facebook hacks your personal data.
Sam, being a damaged protagonist, reacts to the experiments in “unique” ways, which apparently means squinting a lot while fog machines and colored lights go off around him. The doctors poke him with needles, hook him up to monitors, and deliver exposition with the same enthusiasm you’d expect from someone reading a prescription label.
Eventually, Sam transcends physical reality, merges with cosmic energy, and… does something profound? Or maybe nothing at all. It’s hard to say because by that point, the film has dissolved into so many montages of blinking lights and abstract dialogue that you could replace the whole third act with a Windows 95 screensaver and nobody would notice.
The Science: Sponsored by Pseudo-Intellectual Gibberish
The experiments at the heart of Alterscape are meant to sound revolutionary, but they play out like a TED Talk written by someone who failed out of neuroscience. The characters talk about “emotional resonance frequencies,” “quantum empathy,” and “cross-dimensional biofeedback loops.”
What does any of that mean? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s all just scientific seasoning sprinkled on top of a narrative soup that’s missing every other ingredient.
Imagine if Inception, Flatliners, and a self-help podcast were thrown together in a blender, then someone forgot to hit “blend.” That’s Alterscape.
And the worst part? The movie really thinks it’s saying something deep. Every other line feels like it should end with “…man.”
“We don’t feel emotions. Emotions feel us.”
“Reality isn’t real. It’s just… perception.”
“Love and fear are the same waveform, inverted.”
It’s like watching someone try to reprogram human consciousness using a fortune cookie.
Charles Baker: Skinny Pete Meets Sad Buddha
Charles Baker gives it his all — and to his credit, his all is a lot more than this script deserves. He spends most of the movie looking like he just smelled the meaning of life and it wasn’t pleasant. His performance oscillates between catatonic despair and wide-eyed confusion, which is fitting, because that’s exactly how the audience feels.
At one point, Sam goes through a “transcendence” sequence that involves vibrating violently while whispering cryptic phrases about the universe. It’s supposed to symbolize enlightenment. It looks more like a man being electrocuted by an old Wi-Fi router.
Still, Baker’s intensity is admirable. He commits so fully that you start to suspect he might actually believe he’s in a better movie.
Michael Ironside: The Real Mad Scientist
Let’s take a moment to appreciate Michael Ironside — the patron saint of genre films too weird for mainstream Hollywood. Here, he plays Dr. Julian Loro, a scientist who seems permanently one eye twitch away from muttering, “For science!” and blowing up the lab.
Ironside brings his usual gravitas, but even he can’t elevate dialogue like:
“Emotion is the last frontier, Sam. We’ve conquered space. Now we conquer the self.”
He delivers it with a straight face, bless him, though you can tell his soul is slowly exiting through his left eye. Watching Ironside try to anchor Alterscape is like watching Shakespeare perform at a laser tag arena.
Visuals: Somewhere Between Art Film and PowerPoint
To give credit where it’s due, Alterscape looks like someone tried. The cinematography is drenched in harsh light, glowing screens, and an endless parade of slow zooms. Unfortunately, what it doesn’t look like is coherent.
Every experimental sequence is a kaleidoscope of disorienting flashes, medical equipment close-ups, and swirling colors that would make even Stanley Kubrick say, “Okay, tone it down.”
By the fifth “mind-expanding” montage, you start to wonder if the film’s real experiment is testing how long the human brain can withstand boredom before it reaches enlightenment.
The Soundtrack: When Ambient Becomes Ambulance
The score is an endless drone of ominous synths, metallic hums, and distorted whispers — the kind of thing you’d expect to hear inside a sensory deprivation tank moments before you lose your will to live.
The sound design tries to evoke cosmic terror but ends up sounding like a broken MRI machine having an existential crisis. Every scene buzzes and thrums until your head starts vibrating at its own “emotional frequency.” Maybe that’s the point. Maybe we are the experiment.
Themes: Depression, Despair, and Drowsiness
On paper, Alterscape tackles interesting themes — depression, trauma, the human desire to control emotion. In practice, it handles them with all the subtlety of a philosophy freshman who just discovered Nietzsche.
Sam’s depression isn’t explored so much as declared. “I’m sad,” he mutters early on, staring into space. “Everything feels wrong.” The rest of the film is essentially a high-budget therapy session where everyone avoids saying anything remotely helpful.
The movie wants to be profound about the human condition, but it ends up being a PowerPoint presentation on existential dread.
The Ending: Enlightenment or Eye Roll?
By the time Sam achieves “transcendence,” the audience is way ahead of him — mostly because we’ve already left our bodies out of boredom. There’s an extended sequence of glowing energy, overlapping faces, and whispered monologues about perception that feels like watching an acid trip narrated by Siri.
Is Sam a god now? A ghost? An emotion with legs? Who knows. The movie doesn’t. The credits roll, and you’re left with that special post-Alterscape emptiness that only comes from realizing you just watched a film about emotions that made you feel absolutely nothing.
Final Verdict: Existential Dread, Now in Technicolor
Alterscape desperately wants to be 2001: A Space Odyssey meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Instead, it’s more like Flatliners directed by a lava lamp.
It’s full of ideas but devoid of direction — a film that mistakes vagueness for profundity and confusion for depth. It’s so busy trying to blow your mind that it forgets to entertain you.
If you’re into pseudo-philosophical mumbo jumbo, flickering lights, and watching Michael Ironside question his career choices in real time, this might be your jam. But for everyone else, it’s an emotional experiment best left untested.
Rating: 3 out of 10 broken EEG machines.
Because nothing says “cinematic transcendence” quite like feeling your soul leave your body — out of sheer frustration.
