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Distorted (2018) - Movie Review

3 starsFailure.  Eliminate.  Obey.  Kill. Because we all go a little crazy sometimes.

Beginning with a montage of rather extreme events, Distorted is a thrilling ride through the unconscious mind. The film, full of horrific images and deadly taunts, builds its own tower of paranoia that we are never sure is completely toppled. It largely works. The questioning of reality rarely is a good starting place for a film, but Distorted gets its power from uncertainty.  After all, are these events really all that unintentional? Something and someone is always out to get us.

As shadows flicker in and out of view and figures fold in on themselves, reality itself becomes argument. Here is not where you are. And so one couple, Christina Ricci as Lauren Curran and Brendan Fletcher as Russell Curran, decide to relocate to high dollar luxurious condo with all the other wealthy people. Being rich does have its rewards.

"promises a payoff worthy of Ricci’s tortured performance. What it delivers is satisfactory, but not as intriguing as was hoped for."


Big, gorgeous, modern, and safe; it is with these words that Lauren – who is obviously suffering from some form of severe trauma – describes her new condo to her therapist with. Yet, she remains afraid. She should be. And it begins with whispers, then images, and then an electronic hiss.

It feels as if she is being experimented on. The Pinnacle, as it is called, does not feel like a home at all.  It is as if she is being recruited for something very, very sick.

Truly, something feels very amiss inside the condominium. There is a Stepford Wives-like feel to her interactions with the people in the high-tech building and, as words flash across the television and strangers are seen on monitors, she begins to see other residents in the condo spying on her, humming or whistling the same song, and just being genuinely creepy.

And so she turns to exercise. She gets her meds upped. She turns to looking at adoption. And then she hits the jackpot in her pursuit of the truth behind subliminal messages: ultrasonics, infrasonics, pulsed electromagnetic fields. Enter John Cusack as Vernon Sarsfield, the cool version of Snowden. Together, the two of them combine their strengths and their paranoias into a research operation that takes them to some very dark places within the building.

“I’m not one of them.” It is that sentence alone, spoken outside Lauren’s hallway one afternoon, that ought to creep you the hell out. It implies something very real and very disturbing is going on with the rest of the tenants in the building. And just maybe there is; they all seem to be reminding her of one big failure involving a child.

Directed by Rob King and written by Arme Olsen, Distorted works its one conspiracy theory into a meditative fury, thanks to its thoughtful pacing, as it delivers a suspenseful journey as the curtain is pulled back and the wizard is revealed. She needs physical evidence to prove that she’s not mad. But, as the investigation continues the movie threatens to yank the rug out from under its own feet. 

Distorted promises a payoff worthy of Ricci’s tortured performance. What it delivers is satisfactory, but not as intriguing as was hoped for.  Still, this movie gets you to start questioning your surroundings and that is a start...

The dystopia gets its dosage upped thanks to this little thriller. Distorted, released by Minds Eye Entertainment, is out now.

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Distorted (2018) - Movie Review

MPAA Rating: R for some violence and disturbing images.
Runtime:
86 mins
Director
: Rob W. King
Writer:
Arne Olsen
Cast:
Christina Ricci, John Cusack, Brendan Fletcher
Genre
: Action | Thriller
Tagline:
Don't fear the lies. Fear the truth.
Memorable Movie Quote: "Welcome to 21st century living"
Theatrical Distributor:
Minds Eye Internationa
Official Site: distorted.movie/
Release Date:
June 22, 2018
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
No details available.
Synopsis: A 32-year-old woman suffering from bipolar disorder comes to suspect the proprietor of the state-of-the-art ''smart apartment'' she and her husband just moved into is using the building's residents as unwitting guinea pigs for a ''synthetic telepathy'' brainwashing plot with dire global ramifications.

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Blu-ray

Blu-ray Details:

No details available.

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Distorted (2018) - Movie Review

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