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Bertrand Mandico’s new film After Blue is a sci-fi head trip that is going to catch the interest of some viewers, while leaving others feeling dried out and bored. It’s a bold effort, to be sure. A drug-fueled fever dream of a film that aims to recapture the strangest of the strange of 70’s science fiction. In some aspects, it’s a success. It has a wild color palette and style that is visually arresting, but as a story, the film fails to pull itself together enough to form a cohesive narrative that will keep most audiences interested.

When humans made the Earth too toxic for habitation, they fled to a far-off planet they dubbed After Blue. Men quickly died out, unable to adapt to the atmosphere of the planet. Women continued to thrive through artificial insemination, living in small, close-knit communities. One day, teenaged Roxy (Paula Luna...

Her name is Roxy, but the village girls call her Toxic. With peroxide-blond hair and the Lolita-like naiveté of a vintage sexploitation-movie heroine, Roxy wanders through a post-apocalyptic world as unfamiliar to us as it is to her — for we have all stepped into the parallel dimension that is underground filmmaker Bertrand Mandico’s erotic imagination. Welcome to the dirty paradise of “After Blue.”

Humans have poisoned Earth and fled to a new planet, which they’ve dubbed After Blue. Screens and machines have since been banished, making way for a kind of old-world mysticism of sparkling dust, psychedelic lights and occult symbols — like a third eye, superimposed over the pubic triangle of the most enlightened. Operating in the mode of Polish porno-surrealist Walerian Borowczyk, Mandico creates sensual mood trips using only practical effects (this one could be the “Barbarella”-style sci-fi film-within-a-film being produced in Mandico’s 2018 meta-textual short...

In the not-so-distant future, on a planet far, far away, a mother and daughter travel across a hostile landscape with one mission and one mission only: to kill Kate Bush.

Don’t worry, it’s not beloved 1980s singer-songwriter Kate Bush, but a once-dormant evil Polish woman named Katajena Bushovsky now spreading violence and hatred. This is the quest at the center of Bertrand Mandico’s new film “After Blue (Dirty Paradise).”

The film’s title comes from its setting: “After Blue (Dirty Paradise)” is an acid space western set on the planet that comes after Earth, and it is indeed a dirty paradise, though more the former than the latter. After Blue is populated only by women, or so we’re informed, and they hoped to start society anew with greater peace and prosperity. No screens, no machines (though there are guns).

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In a faraway future, on a wild and untamed female inhabited planet called After Blue, a lonely teenager named Roxy (Paula Luna) unknowingly releases a mystical, dangerous, and sensual assassin from her prison.

Roxy and her mother Zora (Elina Löwensohn) are held accountable, banished from their community, and forced to track down the murderer named Kate Bush. Haunted by the spirits of her murdered friends, Roxy sets out on a long and strange journey across the supranatural territories of this filthy paradise.

The newest vision from Bertand Mandico (The Wild Boys) plays like a lesbian El Topo (in space!) with stunning 35mm in-camera practical effects, otherworldly set pieces, and a dazzling score by Pierre Desprats.

In t...

Horror fans don’t have to wait until October to celebrate the scary movies, but this month offers a welcome opportunity to embrace the form. Last year, when the pandemic made in-person film festivals hard to achieve, four respected genre festivals from around the country — Boston Underground, Brooklyn Horror, North Bend, and Overlook — joined forces for a virtual festival event called Nightstream. Blending traditional horror programming with broader examples of genre filmmaking, the lineup provided a welcome opportunity to bring the festival experience to audiences nationwide.

This year is no exception: The second edition of Nightstream begins tonight and runs through October 13, with an exciting online program of films and events accessible to anyone in the U.S. Badgeholders will be able to tune into conversations with David Lowery, “Malignant” writer Akela Cooper, and “Creepshow” showrunner Greg Nicotero, as well as recurring events like The Future of Film Is Female...