Customer Reviews

Paranoia: 1.0

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While the theme of this movie is admittedly somewhat formulaic--corporate greed--the execution is definitely original and deserves real notice. Most impressive of all is the powerful atmosphere, which goes a long way towards giving the viewer the creeps. The filmmakers have essentially drowned their visuals in sepia--not a bad thing at all, and strongly reminiscent of, for example, City of Lost Children by Jeunet-Caro.

There's a really effective Lynch-Kafka thing going on here as our main character, Simon J (Jeremy Sisto) gets involved with his neighbors, his landlord, his friend the messenger, and his super, all of whom, he thinks, could be involved in the delivery inside his apartment of a succession of packages which, when unwrapped, are found to be empty.

Neighbors include the overly kinky Bruce Payne, the wacked inventor Udo Keir (he's great), and sexy nurse Deborah Kara Unger. The super, Lance Henriksen, is another creepy turn for this excellent character actor whose rendition of "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" makes you shudder just a bit. Keir's invention is Adam, a talking robot head that takes the place of its inventor's son (he never married and had children), and that mouths off to him and sometimes spews out decidedly paranoid visions to Simon when the latter comes to visit.

The messenger zooms back and forth on his zippy motorbike and tries to reassure Simon about everything. Simon periodically goes to the supermarket to buy groceries, all made by the Farm company, and all of which cost an arm and a leg.

The filmmakers, clever indeed, use a simplified, pared-down approach in creating their twilit, sepia-washed surreal world. When Simon leaves his building to go food shopping, nobody's on the street. When he walks down the hallway on his floor, no other tenants are there. This minimalist technique is effective in providing an isolated world--more precisely, Simon's isolated world. Not only can you not trust anybody, but because of that, you can't trust yourself.

The ending, while somewhat predictable, is nevertheless just as creepy as the rest of the film. In addition, it's always nice to see some lovemaking in the middle of a film like this, because you know that the supposed solace it provides to one or both of its participants is false--that is, the relief they feel is temporary...like life itself (oy, pretentious).

For a shoestring budget effort, this is indeed a very nice piece of work. Highly recommended.

This movie is extremely suspenseful and extremely weird. It has a lot of imagery and subtle hints that require you to read between the lines to figure out what's happening to Simon (main character). I was on the edge of my seat for the better part of the movie. The ending is one of those where you have to draw some of your own conclusions and kind of leaves you hanging. A great sci-fi thriller with plenty of weirdness to keep you guessing.

Science fiction has never really caught my attention as much as the thrilling and intense "Paranoia 1.0" starring indie hero Jeremy Sisto ("May", "Thirteen") and Deborah Kara Unger ("Thirteen"). To tell you the honest truth, it is hard to know exactly what is going on throughout the movie, but somehow it keeps you hanging, wanting to see what will happen next. Not only is this due to the wonderful, clever script, but it is due to the great acting and the beautiful way in which the film itself was shot. It is such a weird, neurotic (if not hypnotic) film, one must keep his/her attention at full force. To put in a nutshell, "Paranoia 1.0" is a wonderful sci-fi/psychological thriller that will give your heart a run for its blood money and your mind, a twist for the better. Highly recommended.

Well I just have to say that this film was wonderfully coloured in a unique rich brightness.

It's not a bad movie and well worthy of a watch; it has solid stars and good acting. I did not regret having a look at this at all even though It not a revealing film to say the least.


Movies like this are a good move away from the norm that's out there.


I recommend this.

"Paranoia will destroy ya..." or so said the Kinks years ago. The paranoia in this film...well, you'll have to watch the film yourself to see what happens. Step into a grim, surrealistic world (think Dada does Kafka) where strange, unexplained things are going on. A mysteriously empty box that keeps appearing on the doorstep of Simon (played by Jeremy Sisto), people dying under odd circumstances. Simon's world is dreary, dark, depressing and confusing. It is peopled by others who are as confused and zombie-like as he has become-Trish, the cancer ward nurse (played by Deborah Unger), who uses kinky sex to make herself feel alive after being around so much death, the inventor (played by Udo Keir) of a weird robot head, the peculiar custodian played by Lance Hendricksen. Their souls are being sucked dry by a culture that demands that they perform, conform, consume. The only character with energy in this soulless atmosphere is the Neighbor, a sleazy director of S&M porn games, played by Bruce Payne with his customary intensity and nuance.(Why is he left out of the DVD credits?! His is the most memorable character).


Though unrelentingly grim, it is worth seeing more than once. This Kafkaesque film is textured, with many levels of meaning woven into the surrealistic package. There are many messages to be extracted---the dangers of amoral corporations out to control and out of control, the deadening effects of a conformist society, questioning of the extreme measures people will go to to feel alive in a dreary world (TV "Reality" shows, anyone?). By the end of the film, the mystery of the box is revealed. It is a trick that is, as Max Headroom once said, only "20 minutes into the future," a science fiction about to turn into science fact. Is this all a metaphor for what is going on now in our culture? See for yourself. This film, unlike the majority of sorry excuses for entertainment out there, will make you think.

I am watching this for the third time trying to understand it and see bits and pieces of other similar movies.
Sexual arousal through fear, schizophrenic hallucinations and mass hallucinations. The character development was well done. Every character in the cast is paranoid and feed each other and reinforce each other's fears. From a drug dealer who also deals in stolen computer accessories to an alcoholic old man in the basement who sees it all as a conspiracy to implant impurities into the blood stream.
Simon, the main character, believes its all a government conspiracy using the tenants of his apartment building to run mind control experiments. After a while he loses it al together not knowing which of the other paranoid tenants to believe with each on their own paranoid trip.

Paranoia 1.0 (Jeff Renfro and Marteinn Thorsson, 2003)

I'm never quite sure what I'm getting with a Jeremy Sisto film. Sometimes they're brilliant (Unknown, May, Dead Dog, etc.), sometimes they're bloody horrible (Wrong Turn, Thirteen), and sometimes it's years later and I still can't tell whether it was a decent movie or not (The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, Population 436). Paranoia 1.0, a joint Romanian/Icelandic(!) production, is one I've been trying to figure for a month or so now. I'm leaning toward "brilliant", but I'm not quite there. Renfro and Thorsson were both first-time directors, and it shows, but they (who also co-wrote the screenplay) definitely had a vision of what they wanted, and went with it; it's a bold movie with an interesting concept, and despite its flaws, it really does work pretty well.

The plot: Simon (Sisto) is a computer programmer in some nameless Eastern Bloc city; the décor in his apartment building is a mix of Brazil and Dekalog with a touch of Lucio Fulci (about whose Zombi 2 it was said that the best thing about the sets was that Fulci wasn't afraid to use things that were dirty). Simon's just going along, minding his own business, when one day he finds a package just inside his front door. Not unusual, except he didn't hear it delivered--and when he opens it, he finds it empty. Okay, weird. But much weirder when he finds a second one the next day. He starts suspecting various people in his apartment building, and when he questions them about it, he starts to uncover some sort of odd, formless conspiracy about which no one knows more than a fragment.

The movie's twin strong points are its worldbuilding, which is interesting and unique (while you'll recognize most of the facets of this world, I've never seen them brought together like this--the Brazil-plus-Dekalog-plus-Fulci comparison applies to more than the architecture), and its acting. Aside from Sisto, the main characters here are played by Deborah Kara Unger (Crash--the good one, not the Paul Haggis joint), Udo Kier (Suspiria), Bruce Payne (Passenger 57), Eugene Byrd (who just did a stint on Bones), and Lance Henriksen (Terminator). No one there on the A-list, but most of those actors can guarantee you a good time. (Okay, some of them have made some unwise career choices recently, especially Henriksen and Kier, but this isn't one of them.) Put them all together and get a couple of directors who actually know how to light a scene and you've got something. Give them an absorbing script and a plot that actually understands the term "mystery" and oh, yes, there's a movie here.

Not to say it doesn't have its flaws, but the more I think about the movie, the less of a problem they really seem. Yes, the pacing is off in more than one place, but the overall atmosphere really does overshadow that. Some of the characters could have used more depth (okay, a lot more depth), but the acting tends to balance that out; even the minor characters are portrayed by above-average actors (he doesn't get much screen time, but check out the landlord, played by Vald's Emil Hostina. Pure comedy gold!). And there are some serious depths of weird to be plumbed here.

The more I mull it over, the more I like it. Check this one out when you get a chance. *** ½

I recommend this movie to those who like heavy and dark atmospheres. The story holds many secrets.

WOW! With all of the Hollywood CRAP being churned out lately, what a refreshing original movie! Kept my interest and the writing and acting was fantastic! If you want a real, original, well-written movie, HERE YA GO! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS!!!

`Paranoia 1.0' is written and directed by Jeff Renfroe and Marteinn Thorsson - unique partnership (former born in America, latter in Iceland). The film stars Jeremy Sisto as computer programmer Simon who believes someone is trying to control his life - hence `paranoia' - and Deborah Kara Anger (credited Deborah Anger), Udo Kier, Lance Henriksen and Bruce Payne all as the tenants living in the same old building. Eugene Byrd also appears as delivery man who plays a key role in the film.

You might have already known a few things about the film. If so, my summery of the plot does not add much to them. In fact, the story is all about Jeremy Sisto's character Simon, to whose room a package is delivered. Actually, Simon finds the box already left in his room, and he at first thinks it is a break-in case. What is really strange is, however, the package has nothing in it, and it keeps coming to him day after day. And they are all empty.

The tenants are all strange characters - we know, see the cast - and act strangely, well, that's what Simon thinks, and he first knocks on the door of his neighbor Bruce Payne, who Simon suspects must have left the mysterious empty packages in his room. The strange guy seems to know something, or maybe not, but whatever the truth may be, it is related to some nano-techiniques - Version 1:0 in this case.

One of the strongest points of `Paranoia 1.0' is its visuals. The gloomy atmosphere in the building is impressive with the effective brown lighting. The film's ambiguous setting (of time and place) is also intriguing - perhaps it is near future, with no particular place. But the film could be much better with a less obvious theme, in this case its conspiracy theory which is not as original as the film thinks it is. It is as old as many urban legend-like stories about subliminal messages - such as famous (but curiously vague) story about people rushing to buy Coca Cola in theater after watching the screen. John Carpenter has already used this supposedly true story in `They Live' in 1988. So, things about, say, `Nature Fresh Milk' in `Paranoia 1.0' could be too obvious a clue for you. I for one wanted some more twists, or original ideas, in this part. Empty boxes and paranoia are not enough for me.

I really liked `Paranoia 1.0' `s good visuals and curiously attractive ambiguity like David Lynch films, but when it attempts to tell the conspiracy part, it suddenly loses its magic (to me), because it explains the too obvious things. If only the characters talked less about the secrets, which should be left for us to imagine. But that's only my impression.