I sat through this movie wishing I was watching Existenz instead (or The Fly, but this has iconography more similar to gristle guns and fleshy control pods). Maybe I was missing the point, taking things too literally… maybe this is just one big allegory about modern art or the environment or kinky sex, or whatever. Or maybe David Cronenberg was just cynically going back to the well.

The film is about a near(ish) future where mankind is radically evolving for cryptic reasons. Mainly this means losing the sensation of pain (and maybe complex emotion). But also growing random new and mysterious organs. And what do you do with new organs and no concept of pain? Surgery as replacement for art and sex.

I unhappily found this movie too much in static love with itself. That maybe Cronenberg was satirizing his own previous films… or maybe just going through the motions of his favorite goopy hits. I found the movie cold and uninteresting… and largely uninterested in its own premise. Also felt like maybe Cronenberg was trying to freak out the square… throw some freaky-deaky ideas and gore to see if the normies would get up and walk out.

I never got the sense he was particularly interested in whatever nutty ideas he had. There’s a semblance of world-building here and there’s a lot of chit chat about body modifications and the legal standing of organ removal as art but it’s all told with such cold indifference. The movie never really tries for the freak out except in a cold, clinical way.

But, to the fair, at least this is a very Cronenbergian film. The guy who made Crash, Videodrome and Existenz has a (creepy) thing for bizarre body modification so surgery as an allegory for the penetrative act is certainly right up his alley. And yet, I just didn’t find this attempt convincing or interesting… just familiar and unconvincing.

Indeed, I was mostly bored and impatient. And when we get the body horror stuff, I was largely indifferent. Hell, most of it is in the form of surgery which, hey, that’s gross sure but it’s also just organs. There were a few other moments (some involving zippers) and he “goes there” with a certain autopsy scene that’s, sure, in bad taste… but it felt like, yeah, he was trying to freak out the squares. See how edgy I can get?

Not to mention his gonzo and, at first, unsettling dinner chair just got sillier the more time he showed it.

I wish I loved this flick. I wish Cronenberg had nailed another one. Looks like a lot of people think he did and that’s wonderful. I’m glad that my cynical, impatient view of this flick isn’t consensus. He deserves better and I’m happy people are giving it to him.

Score: 62