Welcome back to the David Cronenberg Retrospective! Our next entry marks a transitional period for Sir Cronenberg, an evolution into the more accessible, character-driven stories that make up the latter part of his career. Cronenberg’s 1986 film The Fly, a remake of the 1958 flick by the same name, is a human story swathed in genre trappings. Really icky, awesome, genre trappings.
David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel The Dead Zone is so straightforward, I found myself forgetting that it was a Cronenberg joint. Throughout my viewing, I was all, “But wait! Where are the rage tumors? I haven’t seen any brain sucking yet! Are you seriously telling me that there are NO bloody VCR stomachs in this movie?”
Of course, The Dead Zone is about clairvoyance and telepathy, causality and fate—hardly mainstream themes—but there are very few gory manual effects, which just seems wrong in a Cronenberg movie. I want more ‘splodey heads! And ‘splodey eyeballs! And ‘splodey torsoes! It’s okay to want that, right?
That being said, The Dead Zone is a seriously good movie, as well as a solid adaptation of the source material. In addition to being a Cronenberg fan, I’m also a fervent Stephen King fan, so it’s a little wacky that I’d never seen this movie before my recent viewing. Plus! It stars Christopher Walken! At his gravest and least caricatured self! Continue reading
by: Reverend Jon
When Marla allowed me to choose which movie to review for the David Cronenberg Retrospective, Videodrome was my answer. The movies that resonate with me are those that explore real issues and fears and cause me to think differently about life and the world around me. Videodrome is undoubtedly that kind of movie.
Videodrome is about intersections, or perhaps even collisions, between loaded concepts: pain and pleasure, technology and the human body. I will say right now that it is easy to watch this movie and dismiss it as dated and irrelevant, cheesy even, but I argue that the underlying ideas are relevant today.
From the very beginning, we know that this is no ordinary movie. We are introduced to Max Renn (James Woods, whose waxy complexion lends itself to the manual effects) by his wakeup call, which at first seems eerily prescient, a woman on TV addressing the viewer by name and who knows the date, but then later we realize that this was recorded in advance. Continue reading
Scanners! You were far sillier than I remembered!
20 SECONDS...YOU EXPLODE! Awesome.
Cronenberg’s next film after The Brood lacks its gravitas. Scanners actually differs from almost all Cronenberg films in that there is far less emphasis on psychological and physiological irregularity, and almost none of the skewed sexuality that permeates his other films. Scanners is, dare I say it, a pretty straight horror/sci-fi flick.
With simply outstanding manual effects, of course!
David Cronenberg: Canadian by birth, madman by the grace of God.
There’s an expression that says Hitchcock figured out tension; Spielberg mastered awe; Lucas nailed artifice. Cronenberg, on the other hand, figured out something altogether different. From his earliest efforts (Rabid, Shivers), through his 1980s output (Videodrome, The Fly), to his more recent films (History of Violence, Eastern Promises), a couple of very particular threads run through his work. The first is biological horror – the sensation of watching your body change, turn into something alien, something that you can’t necessarily control. The second is the force of manipulation, and its consequences. Whether the issue is child manipulation, body manipulation, or manipulation of one’s psyche, you can count on Cronenberg to examine the issues, then ABSOLUTELY FREAK YOU THE FUCK OUT, COMPLETELY.
Danny Isn't Here, Mrs. Torrance 