Film seduces us to switch off our brains and immerse ourselves in a colourful, glossy, life-sized narrative. Without wanting to undermine the genuine pleasure that comes from relaxing in front of a good film, I want to encourage us to re-engage our brains and to critically consider modern cinematic output. As Neil Postman writes in his book Technopoly, the surrender to technology ‘is a state of culture’ but ‘is also a state of mind’. To help us do this, I will sketch out the implications of two recent developments in film that I consider to be the most significant: the rise of a new genre of horror, and the advent of 3D films in the commercial market.