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Brandon Cronenberg
I suppose that being a film-maker and having David Cronenberg as your father can be both a blessing and curse. There are expectations when you ride on your father's notoriety, but also a need to find one's own voice. Brandon seems to embrace both of these approaches, though is gradually emerging with his own style. He, too, uses sci-fi to explore the darkness within humanity and identity, and often to surreal effect, exploring a concept in unapologetically excessive and gruesomely violent ways. He also makes heavier use of more modern hi-tech and sci-fi tropes, as well as more polished visuals than his father, who was much more down-to-earth and more disturbing for it. Though identity and self, in these times, are harmed and warped more often by technology, making Brandon's approach fit with the times. The concept is a strongly satirical one about obsession over celebrities taken to biological extremes. But the movie is a dark body-horror movie about a society obsessed with diseases gotten straight from celebrities, ruthless businesses that thrive on this, 'cell-steaks' grown from celebrity bio-matter, and a black market based on these and other disturbing abuses of bio-technology. If this makes you think of a certain director, then you should not be surprised to find that this was made by Cronenberg's son. When a black marketeer gets his hands on a celebrity virus that is unable to be tamed, and everyone wants a piece of him, the thriller plot emerges together with the horror and understated dark satire. This also features machines that interface with viruses, and viruses given human faces. I think his next movie should be about horror film-making talent made flesh and passed on via genetics to create little mutant horror film-makers disguised as humans. A quite good one. 'Shivers' for the new generation. This third outing is where Brandon Cronenberg comes into his own. It does have his father's penchant for excess perverse animalistic behaviour used for disturbing surreal effect, however. At the surface, this is a sci-fi horror movie where some tourists visit a corrupt country that uses clones for a strange form of justice, and they find out how things work and go full bohemian in terms of violence, animalistic behaviour and sex, taking advantage of their money and the lack of consequences. The real movie, however, is going on inside the protagonist as he finds out exactly who he is and has to confront himself when the restrictions are lifted. This is a surreal movie that explores a self-hating man's psyche, and what cloning and a freedom from consequences would do to a man. Literally confronted with himself and his own death, he actually relishes the opportunity to inflict on himself some damage, both physical and psychological. Repulsive warped masks are used as symbols, as the people behind the masks emerge. For the tourists, this is a temporary outing of indulgence in bestial activities, but for him it is much much more, and it both scares and attracts him in deeply disturbed ways. Contains a lot of psychedelia and brief psychedelic pornographic inserts for the cloning and orgy scenes. But it's the excessive behaviour that is surreal. This could have used a lot more subtlety, but, then again, it's Cronenberg. Brandon Cronenberg seems to be taking his time in emerging from under his father's shadow, this being only his second feature. Once again, reviewers across the board will describe the elements he has in common with his father, but this one has many things that are different as well, being more modern horror with surreal elements. That said, if his debut was his version of Shivers, this feels more like Videodrome in terms of its themes of identity-loss through technology and obsessions with sadism. But it is much more serious-minded horror than that movie. An unusual organization uses a special brain implant to literally use other people for assassinations. One female agent who is very good at her job, starts to get disoriented and psychologically lost in her job, as technology glitches, identity issues, personal problems, and blood-thirstiness, all combine to take over her psyche. The kills in this movie feel gratuitously nasty, gory and sadistic despite the above description. The visual, surreal elements depicting identity transferals and acts of possession are quite the disturbing mind-trip, however. Of some interest. |
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