Things to Come

Agreeing substantially with the first (and only) IMDb review of this softcore porn rediscovery posted a year ago, I found this odd indie feature intriguing for a few reels, even prophetic, but it soon devolved into painfully amateurish, even embarrassing filmmaking.

Back in my movie buff life in the '70s, I saw many unsung classics, the sort of movies latterly promoted by Tarantino and others, as well as seeing "unreleasable" films (at midnight and after-hours screenings at theaters like NYC's legendary Thalia). What latter had in common was an unfinished or at least half-baked aspect more likely to elicit head-scratching "Wha?" or groaning reactions.

I was a big, big fan of George Lucas"s "THX 1138" back in 1971, having already enjoyed his short "THX 1138 4EB" at a Cinema 16 midnight program years before. "Things to Come" is in the same vein, even copying for one late scene the white-out backdrop, but instead of introducing a major talent it is becomes almost campy -that is, silly in the extreme while pretending to be serious.

This dystopia is very similar to "Westworld", more the recent TV series than the original Crichton movie the filmmakers were clearly ripping off. Even the themes, criticizing in a still-timely (witness the growing crisis of mass-murder events and lingering power of America's gun fetish culture) way the embracing of sex and particularly violence as entertainment, plus the lack of empathy for human life. Latter theme, though way too heavy-handed here, is like "Westworld" showing how fear of "the other" can insulate us from sympathy, in this case the notion that killing androids (machines) is fine and dandy since they aren't human. Sounds like a serial killer's type of philosophy.

Filmmakers also throw in some fashionable (and durable) mocking of feminism and a very cornball criticism of escapist TV. But fatally condemning this movie to obscurity, less obscure thanks to finding a print and foisting it on a cultish video public 40 years after, is the consistently desultory softcore sex scenes, anti-arousing as the deprogramming of Malcolm McDowell in "A Clockwork Orange" (minus the toothpicks to keep one'e eyes open). A plethora of unattractive women, mostly nude and sporting bushes that look suspiciously like merkins from the prop department, is really reprehensible in a sex movie. Drive-in cinemas where I lived (in Ohio) were constantly showing far better German import "Schoolgirls Report" movies at the time, not junk like "Things to Come".

And the depiction of BDSM, with bondage and whipping recurring as the subject matter of sex, is ridiculous, more in keeping with S&M movies from a decade earlier.