Things to Come (1976)

In the future, we will be obsessed and hypnotized by television, addicted to porn, working in cubicles, and ruled over by technocrats... oh, wait that's right now. Well, it's the depiction of the dystopian future in this film.

Sam (Jim Curtis) is enjoying violent pornography.

It's a show called "Forcible Intruder. In the show, a man enters a woman's apartment and starts ripping off her dress.

The punchline to the show is that this was evidently all role playing since the girl smiles at the end and tells the guy to come back again soon.

Sam's wife Julie (Barbara Fisk) wakes up and joins him in the living room.

Julie doesn't share the same appreciation for violent pornography.

The show Sam is watching now features a girl being punished for bad behavior.

She takes off her clothes and is tied to the bedposts

Julie goes to work at her miserable cubicle job.

She meets a friend for lunch.

Julie confides to her friend that she's tired of this shitty meaningless lifestyle.

Sam barely notices that Julie is back home.

Sam is watching a show about a "women's lib" girl who makes a man have sex at knifepoint.

Julie says she wants a divorce. Sam is too engrossed in porn to care.

She uses a computer to file the divorce paperwork.

Julie turns on the television. A woman announces the winners of the "Love Lottery" who win a trip to the Pleasuredome. Julie's remote control lights up - indicating she's just become a winner.

Julie has developed a comradery with another girl who is secretly brewing a revolution. Now that Julie has access to the Pleasuredome, this is "a chance for you to strike that great blow for freedom we discussed" and destroy the RK1600 computer.

Julie arrives at the Pleasuredome wearing a bomb disguised as a necklace.

She's asked to view some videos for them to gauge her personality.

The video features a dominatrix abusing a guy.

The woman takes her clothes off and gets aroused by her captive's mistreatment.

Julie is introduced to Shannon 5, her Personal Pleasure Unit.

Shannon 5 brings her breakfast then takes her on a tour. Julie is amazed to learn that this isn't really the outdoors; it's all under the dome.

There is a motorcycle race where the drivers are armed and their vehicle is equipped with a sawtooth blade.

Julie, Shannon 5 and the others watch the sport on the monitor.

The sport involves chasing a woman through the forest and killing her.

One of the motorcyclists finds her and shoots her in the chest.

et up with a male Pleasure Unit who takes her to a mockup of a drive-in. She is able to escape.

Julie is chased by the killer cyclists. She finds her way to the entrance of a control facility. A man named Master Control runs this place and learns of her escape.

Julie is able to enter the "Central Core Unit". The Master Controller sees this on his monitor and quickly hits the "neutralizer" button which instantly knocks out all the Pleasure Units.

Julie makes her way throught the facility, walking past all the deactivated Pleasure Units. Julie needs to get access to the RK1600 computer to blow it up.

Master Control explains to Julie over the intercom, the technology is just a ruse. People are much cheaper than technology, and so the so-called Pleasure Units are not robots but rather brainwashed people! It ends with Julie being brainwashed herself and becoming Pleasure Unit Julie 14.

VZ6 SCORECARD

The world they created on such a small budget is impressive - and the creativity in conceiving this world is a joy.  The concepts have been overdone, but in '76 they were fairly fresh ideas.  I do have one big complaint.  It's that it spends waaayyyy too much time on these videos.  The videos don't have a futuristic vibe, and are just a bunch of seventies scenes with naked women.  They could have introduced plenty of naked women in this dystopian universe - why the need to insert groovy seventies clips throughout? It chews up time where I'd much rather be in this Logan's Run world than in yet another 70s living room.  I understand there was a "clean" version with these clips removed - but that doesn't fix the fact that the sleaze is all confined to the very un-futuristic world. Also a bummer that Barbara Fisk never gets naked.  Instead all we have is a bunch of identified actresses likely from old porn loops. Opportunity wasted.

☆☆☆☆☆ 5/10