Transcript note: This transcript is based on the original working script. It may contain production notes, draft wording, spelling mistakes or other material that differs from the finished video - these scripts were meant to be spoken, not read.

Strange Days - Well, it’s the best cyberpunk film nobody watched.

In 1995, Kathryn Bigelow made a film about memory voyeurism, police brutality, exploitation, and the commodification of trauma.

She went as far to invent a new camera technique specifically to film it the way it needed to be filmed.

And audiences at the time just - kinda shrugged their collective shoulders.

It flopped.

Hard.

But not because the film was bad, far from it.

Let’s see what makes Strange Days - Cult, Actually.

[Intro]

The truth is, the world was a different place back then, it didn't want to look at itself through the lens of a film.

Especially not one like this.

It wasn't ready for it. .

It’s 1995.

Nobody has broadband.

Most people think “the internet” means AOL chatrooms.

Virtual reality is a punchline in magazines.

And Kathryn Bigelow - who had just made Point Break - decides her next film should be an uncomfortably realistic look at how people will use technology to relive trauma and exploit each other.

James Cameron had a hand in writing it and would also produce it. He'd also do some editorial work on it, uncredited.

Read into that what you will.

All of that goes a long way in explaining the ambition and the expense when it came to making it though.

The studio, seemingly somewhat confused, decides to market the film like Terminator meets VR.

The one major problem being, that’s not what this film is.

Strange Days is about people recording their memories and selling them like drugs.

The tech is called SQUID.

You put it on your head and it records your actual sensory experience - sight, sound, emotion.

People immediately use it for:

Voyeurism, addiction, violent exploitation and reliving trauma

Not hypothetically.

Not suggested.

Not virtual.

Actually.

And the film doesn’t flinch away from anything that comes with that.

There is a sequence where a man records himself assaulting a woman - and forces her to feel what he feels during it.

There’s no montage, no stylisation, no ironic detachment.

The point isn’t titillation, it's exposure.

It's, well - Horrific.

Just let that thought sit with you a moment. The pleasure someone is getting from inflicting pain on you, being relayed into your brain in real time.

[beat]

But it's not technology that's the problem here, it's the people.

And that's about as Cyberpunk as it gets folks.

The plot of the film comes from the idea that the wrong person was wearing the tech at the wrong time and recorded something they weren't supposed to do.

Corruption in the ranks of the Police, seen and experienced in real time.

[beat]

Because the moment something like that escapes…

it changes who holds the power.

Who controls the story.

And, who gets protected.

[beat]

Not only does it not act its age - it doesn’t look its age either.

Most mid-90s films scream their era:

flat lighting,

cheap compositing,

overedited music video energy.

Strange Days feels like it was shot yesterday.

Those first-person sequences still look modern.

The long takes, the handheld movement and the full first person experience, which was all thanks to the camera Kathryn Bigelow had built to shoot the film.

It was a 35mm camera which could fit in the palm of your hand.

It had interchangeable lenses, remote follow focus, and because there was no room viewfinder it was capable of live video feeds.

Because of the the point of view that the film offers, it took careful planning, up to a year alone all told.

Cameras, lighting and even crew members had to be hidden in plain sight so they looked natural and blended into the scenery

No digital trickery.

No CGI safety net.

Kathryn Bigelow treats the future like real life.

Strange Days could drop on Netflix tomorrow and nobody would question the year it was made.

Strange Days didn’t “miss the audience.” - The studio ran away from the film.

The marketing? wasn’t great…

The film was sold as an action thriller to hide the actual subject matter. After the trailer people were expecting a completely different film.

The timing? - it was well before its time. The world simply wasn't ready for it.

Its audience would come along just a few years later for The Matrix when people were ready to question the future.

The final nail in the coffin? It was too real. The plot revolves around police brutality caught on tape. This was 1995, something the public didn't want to talk about, yet.

In short - People wanted escapism.

Kathryn Bigelow handed them a mirror.

Watching Strange Days today feels like watching a Black Mirror episode… five years before Black Mirror existed.

The film’s worldview is exactly the same:

Technology isn’t the villain.

Humans weaponise technology.

The worst thing about the future is, well - Us.

Strange Days predicted: recording everything, replaying memories, voyeurism as entertainment, monetised trauma

We call it: TikTok, Live streaming and “content”

I mean - Just look at the recent AI uses once it hit the public.

All that power at your fingertips, and what do people do with it?

Deepfakes, role playing and whatever else you don't want to think about.

It's ridiculous.

The film isn't sci-fi anymore, it's become - Real.

Strange Days wasn’t imagining a dystopia - it was predicting how we’d behave when given the tools.

And I honestly don't know if it's sad or scary how right it got it.

Ralph Fiennes - pre-English Patient - plays Lenny, a sleazy, washed-up ex-cop turned memory dealer. A man addicted to reliving his past instead of facing his present.

Angela Bassett is the moral spine of the film as Mace. One of the last good ones, trying to hold the world together.

If Lenny is the future we're heading towards, Mace is the one we should want.

I actually class it as one of Angela Bassett’s best performances, seriously - perhaps the worst crime of the film getting buried is her.

She grounds the film in humanity.

Without her, Strange Days is pure nihilism.

And, nobody saw it - At the time at least.

The film disappeared for decades with its low key release and marketing.

I don't even remember when I first watched it. I remember owning it on VHS and I suspect it was a blind buy.

But it had me from the start. I also remember asking people if they had seen it and been met with blank stares.

It's a film I've upgraded and kept in my collection over the years.

And slowly, I've noticed.

It now gets mentioned in the same breath as:

Blade Runner

Heat

The Matrix

But, quietly.

Strange Days didn’t become a cult film because it changed.

It became a cult film because we changed.

We finally live in the world it predicted.

People talk about 1984 not being an instruction manual…

If it was… Strange Days was the warnings nobody ever reads at the back.

Turns out the future wasn’t exaggerated - just premature.

[beat]

Anyways

I’ve been Paul and Strange Days is Cult, Actually.

If you liked this video, do me a favour and drop me a like to let me know

Subscribe as well if you want while you’re there

Or, don’t - I’ll be here anyways.

Catch you on the next Rewind.

Thanks for watching.