Countdown to Hallowe'en 23: Conspiracy Horror

Image Source: Wiki.

The Countdown to Hallowe'en blogathon, with horror posts here related to different themes on this blog, continues today with 2010's Zenith, a dystopic thriller set in a post-apocalyptic 2044. For Zenith's film-makers, the Technological Singularity is the apocalypse. The movie additionally exploits the after-effects of 9/11, of medical and technological advancements, and of an explosion in communications, which have collectively led to unprecedented levels of public distrust of government authorities in the first decade of the new Millennium. The story concerns a man striving to solve a big conspiracy theory, based on research left to him by his father.

The film had limited release in theatres; it was also released in an open-licensed version online in a torrented format that bypassed growing debates over copyright. It also fostered an online alternate reality game that used interactive marketing techniques to drive the film's publicity and distribution:

On August 31, 2010, Above Top Secret posted a forum thread offering a $500 reward for the first individual to correctly identify the purpose behind the website for the fictitious company "Wadjet Industries." Through a maze of websites, users quickly discovered that Wadjet Industries was related to a new film by director Vladan Nikolic, and that the goal of the alternate reality game was to find online video clips of Ed Crowley's tapes, edit them together, and upload them via YouTube to the film's promotional website, stopzenith.com.

The film's conspiracy has the usual secret societies. It draws on the Millennial obsession with the Illuminati and Freemasons, with the CIA and burgeoning religions, drugs, sex and mysticism. The movie's tagline is: The film they do not want you to see. Zenith's invisible governments and new world orders intersect with a gigantic mess created by mass genetic and moral engineering. This is a desensitized future in which all language and values have been stripped of meaning because humans have been genetically engineereed to be happy. If current experiments are anything to go by, it is a future that is not all that far-fetched. See the film below the jump, which promises that progress in science, technology and communications will leave people convinced that nothing is as it seems, while they suffer from paresthesia and seek dysphoria as the ultimate solution to their never-ending happiness.

Zenith (2010) a film by 'Anonymous.' Video Source: Youtube.

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