Hacker Cinema
Pandorum
2009 · Film · 108 min
Directed by Christian Alvart
ActionHorrorMysteryScience FictionThriller
Two crew members wake up on an abandoned spacecraft with no idea who they are, how long they've been asleep, or what their mission is. The two soon discover they're actually not alone – and the reality of their situation is more horrifying than they could have imagined.
10 positive4 neutralfrom 14 commenters
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15 comments on Hacker News
Pandorum was pretty crazy (he wasn’t in it, but it was an odd space horror movie).
> The best movie I've seen touching on depicting those states is Pandorum.
Unrelated, but there's a fan theory that the amnesia from the hibernation pods isn't a side effect, but a deliberately induced mechanism to keep the sickness at bay.
https://old.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/gmlo53/pandorum_earth_took_serious_countermeasures/
That is putting it rather mildly.
Isolation directly impacts the supercritical state of what we call consciousness/perception. This is why it is a primary component in torture for thought reform which is all about imposing psychological stress to the point of involuntary hypnosis.
The Chinese discovered this during Mao, and literally everyone has used what was learned since. Coercion and compulsion use the same mechanism(structure).
Rationality unravels when your subconscious is in a inconsistent internal state. The best movie I've seen touching on depicting those states is Pandorum. The people there jump at the slightest shadow imagining the worse, and reacting violently; completely unhinged and is only brought into stable interactions by an external threat.
This regression happens when there is no legitimate reflected appraisal, and is accelerated when it is distorted causing an inconsistent internal state. Some people are more resilient than others, often those of higher innate intelligence/principle (not education) do better; and there is never a complete recovery.
The psyche literally fractures, as a function of time and exposure. Everyone that is human breaks; always.
Dissociative or Psychosis.
No feedback is still a form of feedback; just one that diverges. Scary thing, social media echo chambers driven by bots do the exact same (crazy-making/inducing behaviors).
That aside, I read this article and was thinking oh, did the ice worms thaw out? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAIRiacSSos
Some that I've enjoyed recently (or rewatched):
Good One (2024) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30319516/
Strange Darling (2023) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22375054/
The Creator (2023) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11858890/
The Night House (2020) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9731534/
The Empty Man (2020) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5867314/
Possessor (2020) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5918982/
Booksmart (2019) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1489887/
Volition (2019) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6385952/
Welcome the Stranger (2018) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5716280/
Time Trap (2018) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4815122/
Wind River (2017) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5362988/
A Dark Song (2016) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4805316/
I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4303340/
Midnight Special (2016) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2649554/
The Devil's Candy (2015) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4935372/
Mr. Holmes (2015) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3168230/
The Witch (2015) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4263482/
A Most Wanted Man (2014) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1972571/
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1340800/
Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1465522/
Pandorum (2009) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188729/
The Fall (2006) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460791/
In a Savage Land (1999) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151047/
Office Space (1999) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/
The Double Life of Véronique (1991) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101765/
Don't have Netflix so not sure what's available there, and several might not be wife-friendly. Also I enjoy weird, so YMMV.
Yes! And then I'd follow up Event Horizon with Pandorum. Perhaps not quite as good or as well-known as the other two, but still clever and worth watching.
I'll add some films that I enjoyed. Some might be flawed, some constrained by their budget etc, but overall I enjoyed watching them. Ordered alphabetical (I hope).
The more mainstream ones:
- Brainstorm (1983)
- Gamer (2009)
- Midnight Special (2016)
- Pandorum (2009)
- Outland (1981)
- Possessor (2020)
The more low budget/indie ones:
- Alien Arrival (2016)
- Chariot (2022)
- The Endless (2018)
- Galaxy of Terror (1981)
- Honeymoon (2014)
- The man with the magic box (2017)
- The Objective (2008)
- Senn (2013)
- The Signal (2014)
- Time Trap (2017)
- Welcome the Stranger (2018)
Lots of sci-fi reference in the comments but the first thing I thought of when reading the article was the movie Pandorum.
There are very few sci-fi movies or books where relativity is important and they treat it seriously. Tau Zero is one, I'm not sure about Time for the Stars, but Forever War does have FTL.
I created a list of all these works I could find a few years ago. Here is one link:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=l6q90mvssgscsj5arqe8umjb
I think this is a complete list of the films and tv series:
- The Star Lost - Pandorum - Passengers (2016)
Also has shares some elements with the earlier Pandorum (2009):
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188729
Also in Pandorum movie.
Some more movies in no particular order if you want to explore more of psychological horror:
Pandorum
The Lighthouse
eXistenZ
Videodrome
Hellraiser (I’m a fan of the series, some are better than others)
Blue Velvet
Mulholland Drive
The Thing
American Psycho
The Fly
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1978 version with Leonard Nimoy)
It reminds me of the movie Pandorum - http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1188729/
I need to rewatch Primer - it managed to twist my mind into a knot, so I honestly say I didn't understand much of what was happening. Moon is on my list, of Pandorum I haven't heard. Thanks for the titles, I'll definitely see them :).
RE shortening, I remember watching Ender's Game and leaving cinema angry, because the movie had compressed the book so much that I felt it won't make any sense for a person who hadn't read the novel. I now imagine that the Martian may have seemed similarly poor to you because of that. If you happen to read the book and find the text being crap, please get back to me, I'd really like to hear your perspective.
We, or rather - some of us - are talking not books, but book+movie combo. The Martian was quite a thing among space geeks even before the movie was announced, and doubly so after the story broke - so, like me, they probably implicitly assume others read the original too. I guess it's a lesson for me for the future, to bring up explicitly whether one had or had not read the book :).
You're right, I haven't read the book, the movie was my first exposure to this (unfortunately apparently?). To say it compresses it strongly better words so many of my issues with the movie than I could have put it. (in that it seemed like a series of set pieces attached together by musical interludes; echoing your lack of character development as well)
To answer the question from your other post, my "holy trinity" is Primer, Moon, Pandorum. (the first two on a pedestal above the third, but the third manages to fit in being an "action" movie without going too far down that road such that I can't but love it.)
If we're talking books, that's an entirely different discussion, and seems to be the one most people want to have when bringing up The Martian. I've certainly felt the same about some of my favorites. (I recall the whisper of a Foundation movie that made me want to run and hide)
Agreed. TRIANGLE was a pleasant surprise --far better than the average for that genre-- but not 'hard' sci-fi.
Another surprisingly good lower-budget/-attention sci-fi film is PANDORUM.