WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
I’ll be honest, to me David Cronenberg doesn’t exactly come across as the sanest of people. When you decide to watch one of his films, please prepare yourself for the weird and wonderful as well as probably finishing it a little confused. Cronenberg is remarked upon as being one of the lead directors in body horror – and with certain moments in the films below I’m not surprised…
Videodrome
I’m probably going to say this a lot during this article but I don’t understand this film at all! The worst part was, I actually didn’t need this film for this article as it doesn’t appear in Cronenberg’s top five – but I was unable to get The Dead Zone so it did help a little. I kept trying to work out if this was supposed to be Cronenberg’s abnormal commentary on pornography or if he was making remarks on violence and sex on television in general. You know that age old debate of whether TV makes us violent or if we have violent tendencies already. I also started to wonder after a while if the character of Nicky was even real or if Max had been hallucinating her all along.
Scanners
This may actually be the first Cronenberg film I’ve watched that actually makes any sort of sense! The battle of the scanners reminds me a lot of X-men Last Stand because it’s whether the telepathic powers are a gift or a curse…. like the idea of being born a mutant. What makes this film even better is the unexpected twist regarding the relationship between Daryll and Cameron as well as what Ephemarol is really being used for! Thank you, David Cronenberg, for a film I can actually follow along with without getting completely confused about the premise!
eXistenZ
I just want to open with one thing – I cannot stand Christopher Ecclestone’s accent in this film! I’m so glad what happens to him happens because it shuts him up. I don’t know about anyone who has watched this film but the meta-flesh game pod sounds like a little baby when Allegra turns it on, so it concerns me what they’re actually made from. I had my suspicions in the beginning that everything happening to Allegra and Ted was inside the game and annoyingly I was right! It meant that Cronenberg has gone from confusion, to understandable to predictable. OK, the game they’re in is tranCendenZ instead of eXistenZ but the point still stands.
Crimes of the Future
This is actually the second time Cronenberg has made a film titled Crimes of the Future. Anyway, now we’re back to confusing. For a while there seemed to be no point in the opening scene with the mother murdering her son. Truthfully, still not sure why he was eating the bin because I’m sure it turns out his organs are normal in the end. Like Videodrome, I feel like this film is supposed to be some sort of grotesque commentary on both sex and performance art but all wrapped up in almost a sci-fi murder mystery and crime drama. Once the two plots came together, the film became a little easier to follow but with the additional subtext, which for me was unnecessary made it a little bit of a struggle. Additionally, unless I missed something – I’m confused by when Router and Berst of the Lifeform company became murderers.
The Fly
Excluding the fact that Cronenberg made two films called Crimes of the Future, as not having seen the first one I can’t say if they are same story, this is the only remake in this article (yes, there will be a write-up at some point). This is turn makes the film easy to follow. I don’t know about the original but the moment Seth transports the baboon and we see what comes out the other side just looks super gross! I had always assumed that during the teleportation, Seth came out looking more like a fly. Maybe he does in the original but Cronenberg decided to take a different angle. I actually think the gradual transition is more unnerving! It’s very rare that a film makes me feel sick – but the final transition from human to human-fly, definitely turned my stomach!
