“Our modern technology has achieved a degree of sophistication beyond our wildest dreams. But this technology has exacted a pretty heavy price. We live in an age of anxiety, a time of stress. And with all our sophistication we are in fact, the victims of our own technological strength. We are the victims of shock … of future shock.” No, this isn’t a quote from a Huffington Post column on the Facebookization of modern communication. Nor is it pulled from an academic treatise on the phenomenologies of post-industrial existence. This statement was made by Orson Welles in the 1972 futurist documentary Future Shock, and, unlike some of the more dated elements of 1970s educational films, Future Shock remains shockingly current in verbalizing the concerns and anxieties that come along with rapid societal and technological change. (Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive)

Marty Mackenzie is an unsuccessful stage actor who takes an interest in private investigating. He takes a job working with Jack Potter, a crusty private eye. They both take a case in Beaver Ridge, a seedy small town where a murder is being planned against a rich gravel pit owner. Marty realizes that private investigating is not as it seemed to be.

Near the end of the 19th century, Prof. John Mayer and his assistant, the scientist Dr. Isabel Reed, accidentally invent a powerful ray. An alien travels to Earth to destroy the machine since it would be a threat to the universe. He initially possesses the mind of Thomas, a sex maniac and serial killer, to get close to Mayer during the demonstration of the machine to scientists and the military. Mayer's niece, Laura, meets an acquaintance of her uncle, the chemist Dr. Paul Rosten, and Mayer invites him to join the research. When Thomas gets close to Mayer, the alien also possesses his mind in order to destroy the device and his notes. Meanwhile, Thomas is not able to control his murderous impulses and attacks several women with a straight razor.