“The time to worry about crossing lines was a lot of lines ago,” Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth) tells his assistant Mark (Mark Paguio). Abnesti, with a maniacal glee plastered on his face, delightfully shoots up experimental drugs into the people who reside in Spiderhead, a government-issued penitentiary of looming brutalist architecture made within the vicinity of a set of islands in a beautiful but far-off location (Spiderhead was shot in Australia during the coronavirus pandemic).

Director Joseph Kosinski, whose Top Gun: Maverick debuted in cinemas just four weeks ago, is not the first name that comes to mind when you envision this film — nor for that matter, you see Hemsworth (also one of the producers of the film) as the morally screwed up yet unreservedly happy Abnesti. However, the two work quite well in this low-profile, minimalist, dark science-fiction film that reminds one of Ex Machina, and episodes from the series Black Mirror.

Abnesti’s lab rats are federal inmates of varying life sentences. Some of them are more docile than others, serving time for criminal offenses that have left mark on their consciousness.

Spiderhead isn’t a prison per se. The inmates get good rooms, have freedom to move about and explore relationships, and have the option of legal consent when asked to take drugs.

The meds which flush emotions — be it arousing libidos or inspire terror from the sight of a stapler — are dispensed by packs that are retrofitted at the patient’s spinal cord. The doses are regulated by an app on the phone.

The immediate question any sane man would have is for the device’s durability — especially when emotions of animalistic sex or utter fear are triggered by Abnesti.

Jeff (Miles Teller from Maverick), who serves time because of a car accident that killed his friend and girlfriend, hasn’t forgiven himself. His brooding, constantly self-blaming nature makes him the perfect fodder to test a drug that turbo-charges his libido. Abnesti wants to see if one can truly fall in love from the drugs. Both Abnesti and Mark watch Jeff’s interactions with women from their one-way, glass-separated control room; they’re obviously perverse voyeurs who record the instances in the name of science.

Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick pen this adaptation of the original short story by George Saunders which appeared in New Yorker Magazine (also one of the producers of the film). For someone who hasn’t read the source material, the screenplay’s tone and rhythm, be it far removed from the original tale, feels engaging.

Despite doing an adept enough job, Kosinski has not yet gained the maturity to handle subtle cerebral tendencies that creepy, dark science-fiction requires, despite his inclination for choosing stories that have an underlying sense of dismalness to them (both Tron Legacy, his debut film, and Oblivion with Tom Cruise, have dark premises).

Spiderhead’s premise, while interesting, is not entirely new to the genre, and despite the hasty finale and the lack of finesse from Kosinski, the film that we get is still far better than the fodder Netflix usually produces in this genre.

Streaming on Netflix, Spiderhead is rated R for scenes that convey situations of sex (we don’t really see any nudity) and drugs

Published in Dawn, ICON, June 26th, 2022