A viewfinder of viciousness and vulnerabilities visualized vicariously with validity about a volatile vendetta, a clairvoyant, and the verifiably vile vacillation of a virus.

Altered Perceptions is the new sci/ fi horror film about how a cosmic prognosticator sets out to alert people in the present about their impending doom in a post-apocalyptic world inspired by headlines nowadays. Is there a conspiracy to illuminate the naughty truth?

Directed, produced, and edited by Jorge Ameer, I immediately noticed the grandiose feel of the score. That being said, throughout the film, there are these odd musical cues that don’t match the moment presented. It’s distracting.

Speaking of which, the camera work is inconsistent. For example, in some scenes, the camera pans between 2 characters but it doesn’t match up to the conversations. It moves away from the speaking character to focus on someone listening. It feels off-putting. Other times the wide establishing and tracking shots feel extremely cinematic.

The editing is uneven, using jump cuts that don’t accentuate dialogue so it feels like it the cuts happen at random. It feels like large portions of the film are missing like they had removed scenes to keep a 2 hour runtime.

One perk is the grotesquely gratuitous gore effects. Some scenes escalate rapidly so the amount of violence is shocking because of how the scenes are paced. Some kills are so over the top you can’t help but laugh. I’m not sure if that’s intentional but it’s as entertaining as ever. I was pleasantly surprised.

Written by Dr. Wayne C Dees, he’s a neurologist who was inspired to pen the script during the global pandemic lockdown. I’m not questioning how knowledgeable he is about practicing medicine but clearly, he’s not a writer. It feels like a jumbled mess of a script aimlessly meandering from one plot point to the next.

Some characters get introduced but there’s no context to their lives before the events of the film. Some come and go without ever being referred to again. Not enough time is given to sit in those moments to feel what they feel either.

The dialogue is rigid, constantly telling viewers exposition instead of showing what happened. I’m curious what the original script looked like compared to how much they filmed.

The cast includes Oran Stainbrook, Eric Roberts, Sally Kirkland, Lance Guest, Matt Fling, and Vincent Giovanni. Most of the acting is wooden. People don’t react appropriately to horrifying circumstances transpiring in front of them. The more dramatic scenes are similar. Certain people are subjected to extremely traumatizing situations but the performances are emotionally underwhelming.

Overall, in a narrative sense, scenes randomly jump from one to the next with little to no cohesion. There’s a lack of structure. It’s overly convoluted with no clear direction of which plotlines to follow. Perhaps if more drafts of the script had been written by a bona fide writer it would feel more focused. It’s about vaccines, Covid, dementia, politics, propaganda, homophobia, ageism, racism, classism suicide, conspiracy, North Korean biological warfare, and an alien invasion. There’s more going on in the script than Billy Joel can fit into one song. It reminded me of 12 Monkeys (1995) and Contagion (2011) so I’d recommend it if you like those but they were done better. It’s not for everyone. And remember, we didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning.

Grade 5/10