10 Sci-Fi Movies That Were Way Too Complicated

6. Beyond The Black Rainbow

Cloud Atlas
Magnet Releasing

You know Stranger Things? The story of a girl who is given psychic powers through scientific experiments and then has to escape her oppressive captors?

Well, this film is that if Aleister Crowley wrote the script.

Set in a facility not too dissimilar to Eleven's, Beyond the Black Rainbow is about a corrupt scientist and his obsession over a young girl with a supernatural gift.

Whilst the girl, Elena, attempts to escape her prison, the scientist, Dr. Barry Nyle, slowly descends into madness and rejects all the qualities that make him human.

If those were the only two things going on in this film, then it might have been alright. Sadly, that's not the case.

There's also the side plot of Nyle's wife, his old mentor, some weird robot things floating around the facility, and the story of the facility as a whole. Oh, and Ronald Reagan is in it? For some reason?

Whilst some people really enjoyed Beyond the Black Rainbow, others weren't so impressed. One reviewer called it "the movie equivalent of gazing at a lava lamp for nearly two hours."

Only a lava lamp never had a budget of $1.1 million.

Contributor
Contributor

Jacob Simmons has a great many passions, including rock music, giving acclaimed films three-and-a-half stars, watching random clips from The Simpsons on YouTube at 3am, and writing about himself in the third person.