Altered Perceptions: A Sci-Fi Disaster of Unintended Laughs
Director: Jorge Ameer
Cast: Oran Stainbrook, Eric Roberts, Vincent Giovanni, Danny Fehsenfeld, Sally Kirkland, Matt Fling, Joseph DeMatteo
Running time: 120 mins
Directed by Jorge Ameer, Altered Perceptions is a low budget sci-fi thriller that the press notes describe as being “ripped from the headlines”. Unfortunately, what that actually means is that the movie makes a series of references to recent events, without actually tying any of it together in coherent fashion. However, that’s the least of its problems, as the whole thing is basically inept on every conceivable level.
After an initial prologue, the film loosely centres on Alex Feretti (Oran Stainbrook), the son of a prominent scientist (Matt Fling), who is visited by a naked man (Jose Rosete) who purports to be a prophet from the future, warning of an imminent apocalypse. The event in question is tied to a mysterious dementia-like virus that shrinks the brain and causes people to commit violent murders.
Also in the mix is evil Sentator Ted DeMarcos (Danny Fehsenfeld), who stirs up hatred by blaming the virus on the black and homosexual communities, while also plotting the overthrow of the government when an upcoming election doesn’t go his way. Sound familiar?
There’s so much that’s wrong with Altered Perceptions that it’s genuinely difficult to know where to start. For a start, the script is frighteningly wrong-headed, giving so much airtime to the DeMarcos character that it feels like being ranted at by a conspiracy theorist for two hours – having a character talk at length about Covid-19 vaccines (oh yes, it’s “ripped from the headlines”, alright) being responsible for death and severe mental illness feels irreponsible at best, especially without giving anyone else in the film an opposing voice.
Secondly, the script is all over the place. It constantly introduces new characters, without giving them anything to do and there’s no sense of story progression, just a series of dramatic or shocking events, followed by some usually fairly dodgy speech. In addition, the tone is wildly inconsistent – one minute you’re watching scientists giving what amount to full video essays on brain perception, the next there’s a naked man having sex with a prostitute’s severed head.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the film frequently recaps the entirety of a scene by then presenting the same information in a newscast – for example, the aforementioned sex scene is then presented more or less in full, complete with footage that definitely would never make it onto a news report, only with a newsreader effectively narrating it. Badly.
At this point, it probably goes without saying that the acting is appalling across the board. Hilariously, the script even has somebody say, “There are a lot of bad actors involved here” at one point, giving the film an unintentional laugh-out-loud moment. You have to feel particularly sorry for Eric Roberts, the film’s only recogniseable actor, who’s in precisely two scenes, before disappearing completely, after pushing his wife out of a window.
The film is also frequently inept on a technical level, especially when it comes to the sound. Fehsenfeld’s dialogue is especially bad in this regard – at one point it crackles and distorts so badly that you’ll think there’s something wrong with your speakers.
Generally speaking, the film makes no sense at all from one minute to the next, with the scenes barely even relating to each other. On top of that, the ending is deeply unsatisfying, suggesting the writers had no idea how to end their film, so they just didn’t bother.
If there’s a positive aspect to the film, it’s only that it has a commendable commitment to full frontal male nudity. It’s completely inappropriate, yes, but the fact that Rosete’s every appearance is completely naked is at least amusing, even if it’s clearly established that he is solid enough to wear clothes if wants to. Let’s just say the actor has nothing to be ashamed of – maybe he insisted? At any rate, that whole conceit leads to the film’s only truly enjoyable moment, when the naked stranger first appears and follows Alex through a parking lot, with Alex quickening his step to get away from the naked weirdo. Frankly, The Terminator should have done that scene.
In short, this is utterly dreadful from start to finish. It’s misguided, ineptly directed and frankly offensive in its attempts to be edgy and provocative. Suffice it to say that whatever point the filmmakers were trying to make is completely lost. Avoid like your life depended on it.
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