History Film / BeyondTheBlackRainbow

* AnAesop:
** Be wary of utopian dreams, as utopian ambitions can easily become destructive when divorced from ethical principles.
** Psychedelic drugs are ''not'' harmless tools for enlightenment. When used by people with existing mental instability, or used without consideration for set and setting, psychedelics can bring about terrifying experiences and trigger mental health problems.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: Elena is barefoot in her confinement cell.

* EscapeFromTheCrazyPlace[=/=]EscapedFromTheLab: The last third of the movie involves [[spoiler:Elena escaping from the Arboria Institute compound as Barry descends deeper into madness]].

* BattleaxeNurse: Margo, who treats Elena callously.

* EyeScream: A few. A notable one includes Dr. Nyle removing his contacts with ''needle nose pliers''. The removal is not shown, but his moan of pain tells it all.

* EvilSorcerer: The Arboria Institute staff's functional roles given the [[MagicIsEvil psychic energy it contains]], but especially Barry in his control of the pyramid and the MagicPoweredPseudoscience that causes the Sentionaut to be activated by a desktop keyboard shortcut Margo types in.

* CoolCar: Dr. Nyle drives a wedge sports car only a step removed from older concept models--a Lotus Esprit. However, it's really the [[TwoDecadesBehind only cool thing]] about his look or surroundings.

* CoolCar: Dr. Nyle drives a wedge sports car only a step removed from older concept models. However, it's really the [[TwoDecadesBehind only cool thing]] about his look or surroundings.

** Dr. Arboria's suicide is similar to that of Sol Roth's suicide in ''Film/SoylentGreen''.

* BrownNote: The low humming on the soundtrack that indicates [[spoiler:that the Pyramid is active and suppressing Elena.]]
* CameBackStrong: [[spoiler: Elena's "baptism" in the black liquid gave her OffTheScale PsychicPowers that Nyle covets and keeps suppressed via Arboria's technology.]]

** [[spoiler: Dr. Nyle's dip in the primordial ooze had this affect on him]].

* CreepilyLongArms: The Sentionaut.

* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: Elena.
* EscapeFromTheCrazyPlace / EscapedFromTheLab: The last third of the movie involves [[spoiler:Elena escaping from the Arboria Institute compound as Barry descends deeper into madness.]]

* EvilSorcerer: The Arboria Institute staff's functional roles given the [[MagicIsEvil psychic energy it contains]], but especially Barry in his control of the pyramid and the MagicPoweredPseudoScience that causes the Sentionaut to be activated by a desktop keyboard shortcut Margo types in.

* HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: In the Arboria Institute video, Dr. Arboria lists "benign pharmacology" as one of the tools used by his organization to foster happiness and enlightenment. [[spoiler:Subverted in the 1966 flashback scene, in which exposure to LSD and the black liquid shattered Barry's mind.]]

* {{Homage}}: In terms of style as well as subject matter, to Stanley Kubrick films of the late 1960s and 1970s, as well as science fiction films of the early 1980s.
* HumanoidAbomination: The Sentionaut.

* MagicPoweredPseudoScience: The entire Arboria Institute is based on a dark version of this.

* MindScrew: Endlessly. It reaches the point that a perfectly ordinary [[spoiler:EstablishingShot]] of a perfectly ordinary [[spoiler:staff break room]] will ''unwind your mind.''
* MushroomSamba: The 1966 flashback sequence (if not the whole movie.)
* NewAge: A number of classic NewAge tropes - such as belief in the spiritual focusing power of pyramid shapes and a fixation on psychoactive drugs as a source of inspiration - are given a nightmarish makeover in the form of the inside of the Arboria Institute.

* PsychoPsychologist: Barry.

** Depending on how the viewer interprets the notebook that Margo finds, it's possible Barry Nyle is planning a selective breeding program with himself as the main subject - similar to one proposed by the infamous sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein in the early 2000s.

*** The baldness could also be a reference to the movie ''Film/BlueSunshine'' where a bad batch of LSD causes a long-delayed reaction in the form of baldness and violent psychosis.
** The Sentionaut is wearing gear reminiscent of the spacesuits from ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey.''

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Guess where this movie falls? Hint: the entire movie can be taken as a lengthy NightmareFuel-driven TakeThat at the optimistic aesthetics of 20th century futurism, the inspirational rhetoric of the NewAge movement, and bright or outright utopian visions for the future in general - showing the disastrous decay that can come out of efforts to shape a better world or better humanity when those efforts are divorced from ethics.

* TheStinger: [[spoiler: A close-up of a Sentionaut action figure lays on a carpet, as a half-backwards voice exclaims "Do you read me?" over PacManFever noises.]]
* SurrealHorror: Oh, ''yeah.'' Barry's bizarre visions are just the tip of the iceberg.

* TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: [[spoiler: What Dr. Nyle saw when he tried to "bring home the mother lode."]]

** WordOfGod: "I look at Arboria as kind of naive [...] There is a moment of truth in the film where the whole thing starts to disintegrate because it stops being about their humanity and becomes about an unattainable goal. That is the 'Black Rainbow': trying to achieve some kind of unattainable state that is ultimately, probably destructive."

* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Maybe not the trailer, but the ''poster'' spoils [[spoiler:Barry's "transformation" into a bald-headed, knife-wielding killer.]]
* TwoDecadesBehind: Aside from having a single early-80s desktop computer, the Arboria Institute has a very '60s/70s aesthetic that implies it hasn't been remodeled or updated lately as of the film's 1983 setting. This is further evidenced by Barry's hairstyle and dated clothing.

* VillainousBreakdown: Barry goes from a cold and calculating PsychoPsychologist to a [[spoiler: bald, ranting, hallucinating, knife wielding psychopath]].
* WhatNowEnding: [[spoiler: Elena's escaped the suffocating control of Dr. Nyle and the Institute, but it's left unsure what she will do or face next.]]

* YourHeadAsplode: [[spoiler: Elena telekinetically kills Margo this way, after Margo took away the photo of Elena's mother and made a cruel comment about her mother's death.]]

* MindManipulation: The Arboria Institute has more than a few tools to achieve this goal, including a pyramid and a computer that can activate a minion to inject an unconscious resident with drugs.

** It's also implied as the possible back story of the Sentionaut and the creature in the straightjacket.

** The flashback to 1966 is shot in high-contrast black and white in homage to E. Elias Merhige's experimental horror film ''Begotten''.

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* PostersAlwaysLie: Perhaps not the trailer, but looking at the poster, you'd assume this is a B-movie slasher flick. Especially jarring is the depiction of Elena ''running''. Elena does not run anywhere in the film; in fact she ''strolls'' everywhere when she's not crawling on all fours. Justified in that the film's concept is inspired by posters for horror and dark science fiction films that the director was fascinated by as a child but then too young to watch.

Set in 1983, the film follows a girl named Elena, a telepath studied and locked inside a NewAge research compound, and the unstable therapist that supervises her. Things start getting astoundingly weird''er'' very quickly. The film is shot in the deliberately slow, sterile, and excessively polished style of '70s cold sci-fi movies, such as ''Film/THX1138'' and ''Film/{{Solaris|1972}}'', as well as 1980s cinema that continues in a similar vein such as ''Film/{{Scanners}}''. It also features a mostly DroneOfDread score.

* AwfulWeddedLife: Implied. Rosemary seems to walk on eggshells around Barry, acting kind and gentle when he is in the house but hiding understated anxiety. Barry, for his part, can barely contain his disgust for Rosemary, hiding it under a veil of civility. He spends so much time at the Arboria Institute that he comes home late at night, so the two barely see each other. Rosemary sleeps on the sofa, suggesting that she and Barry do not share a bed. [[spoiler:Before Barry murders her, he dismisses her as "nothing" and "spit in the wind.]]
* BadPowersBadPeople: Barry uses his powers for evil. Although Elena is the designated protagonist due to being his victim, it's left open to debate how she'll use her own powers once she's escaped from the Institute.