The Brain Hack
2015 · 18m · UK
Directed by Joseph White
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Two students — a computer science major fascinated by neurotheology and a film major — set out to engineer a film that induces hallucinogenic visions of God, only to find themselves hunted by a militant religious sect determined to stop them.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone else sees a gimmick premise—neurotheology thriller, sure, whatever—but White's actually built something genuinely disorienting here: a film about engineering visions that *becomes* its own visual assault through sheer directorial obsession, 400 setups to make staring at screens feel like your brain is glitching too.
The formal restraint is what arrests: two men and their screens could be Bresson or early Godard, and White seems acutely aware of that lineage—the tension comes not from plot but from how cinematically he's chosen to frame the *refusal* of spectacle, a thriller that argues for contemplation over sensation.
The decision to shoot 400+ setups across 14 locations for what's essentially two people at computers—that's not excessive, it's the exact constraint that *forces* the visual language to work harder, and it's what makes this feel like cinema instead of a concept waiting to be filmed.
Reviews
Amazing how well crafted, visually and conceptually digestible, yet incredibly complex both in its narrative and practical structure.
Studio 8 picked up the short for feature treatment after it went viral online.