12 Sci-Fi Movies That Purposefully Mess With Your Head

Director Panos Cosmatos delighted audiences in 2018 with his psychedelic horror-thriller Mandy, which benefited from a paper-thin plot that allowed Nic Cage to go full Nic Cage as a grieving husband slaughtering a semi-demonic biker gang who murdered his titular wife. It’s a shame the helmer couldn’t return to collaborating with the beloved (if demented) actor for the acclaimed Lovecraft adaptation The Colour Out of Space, but we guess genre icon Richard Stanley will do.

Before Mandy hit our screens, however, Cosmatos had already impressed genre buffs with his first film, the ambitious Beyond the Black Rainbow. A dark sci-fi indebted to the nihilistic genre fare of the seventies such as George Lucas’ debut THX 1138, Beyond the Black Rainbow tells the strange story of a young woman with psychic abilities been held captive by a strange scientist in a New Age retreat.

Many found the film impossible to read, but a glance into the politics of the director (whose father is legendary Greek filmmaker George P. Cosmatos) reveals that the institute’s machinations can be read as society’s attempts to control and regulate its citizens, with Reagan’s America taking the brunt of the films satirical ire.