Elena (Eva Allan) is a captive in an underground research lab belonging to one Arboria Institute, a cultish group that is devoted to some poorly defined 'better living through technobabble'. There the girl is tormented by Dr. Nyles (Michael J. Rogers), who subjects her to frequent interrogations that include some barely concealed barbs to try and get a rise from her.
Elena only stares at the floor and barely reacts; Is she consciously ignoring him? Is she tripping balls? Who knows. But there's a bit more going on beneath the surface, as she communicates telepathically with the man (and asks to see her father), and the Doctor uses some sort of giant prism to counter her latent powers.
As the movie develops, tiny scraps of information are slowly - very slowly - revealed that give you some tools to extract a vague sense out of things; We meet the institute's founder (Scott Hylands), see a (gorgeous, chemical FX-realised) flashback where Dr. Nyles is sent to another dimension (or something), and get a feel for Elena's life in the Institute before she manages to escape, the good doctor always a couple of steps to the side, manipulating things. Oh, and there are a couple of random mutants thrown in for effect, as well as a couple of pimply metal nerds to up the body count.
It's a very narrow-slice pastiche of styles and elements shot in gorgeous, grainy 35mm with special attention to the production design, a beautiful synth-y score, and lush colour schemes (Bob Bottieri and Jeremy Schmidt off psych-rock band Black Mountain and Norm Li, respectively). Whether you like it or not will depend on how much tolerance you have for this sort of thing, your patience, if you don't mind movies that shoot for style over substance, and if you click with its particular aesthetic.
Personally, I'm much more of a fan of Writer/director Panos Cosmatos's Mandy, which managed to have a lot more going on while still keeping this careful attention to aesthetics and devotion to old-school weirdness. I had some trouble sticking to this one, and nodded off a couple of times - it's absolutely a late-night movie, but not one to approach if you're even marginally tired. On the plus side, you won't miss anything vital.
It is beautiful, though, and compelling at times; I could easily see myself falling under its spell upon a rewatch in different circumstances. But the few scraps of story can't really sustain it, not even before the almost hilariously underwhelming final confrontation runs its course.
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