12 Sci-Fi Movies That Purposefully Mess With Your Head

Released only shortly after the Wachowski Sister’s era-defining The Matrix, eXistenZ is a similarly trippy dip into the mind of Canadian sci-fi horror auteur David Cronenberg.

The flick was a departure from the helmer’s usual formula of combining a simple story with mind blowing-ly gruesome effects as seen in everything from The Brood to Scanners and The Fly. Starring Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the film owes more to Cronenberg’s adaptation of William S Burrough’s disturbing literary classic Naked Lunch than The Dead Zone, and it still stands out amongst the director’s oeuvre.

The plot follows Leigh’s video game designer as she tests out her most recent immersive virtual reality experience whilst being pursued by assassins (or is she?). However, the film never makes it clear whether the action we’re watching is part of the titular game or reality and also never clarifies which characters know they’re in a game (if, indeed, they are) leaving us in slippy narrative territory where no one can be trusted and it’s impossible to gauge the risk faced by the cast - like a good video game.