From phallic parasitic monsters and stomach vaginas to horrifying creatures namedMugwump and a guy fucking a woman's leg wound, there are few macabre and grotesque things David Cronenberg hasn't shown us over the years. The Canadian director is an incredible study in contrasts, producing films that take audiences to strange new subconscious places in their minds while also looking and speaking like a mild-mannered librarian. His films have ranged from the grotesque to the hyper-sexualized to the grotesquely sexualized, with several other combinations of those two terms in between.
Cronenberg's Jewish upbringing might not be apparent in all of his films, but the underlying "guilt" that anyone raised either Jewish or Catholic notoriously cart with them for a lifetime. Cronenberg is now an avowed atheist, but there's a sense in his films that he's expunging that guilt from his upbringing through intenselyabnormalmeans. He considers his films "funny" even if they're not outright comedies, and this goes one step further toward proving that his films and his own outward appearance are about as starkly different from one another as one could get.
Hiscareer is neatly divided in two sections: Body Horror and Psycho-Sexual Horror. There's plenty of crossover between the two, butfrom 1993'sM. Butterflyonward, Cronenberg moves away from the outlandish makeup effects and anything that might metaphorically take the place of actual pain and suffering. He replaces it with an intensely focused and much more intensely real look at how people use sexuality to mask their pain. Where sex and horror mix and mingle in the early part of his career, his later work is much more invested in the pain of his characters and how that manifests itself through sexuality.
Since it splits so neatly—and since nudity is a part of all but three of his films—we'll be dividing this discussion of Cronenberg in two. This time around, we'll be covering the Body Horror period, starting with Cronenberg's first non-short, non-experimental feature length film...
Shivers (1975)
Technically Cronenberg's third feature film—as his shorts Stereo and Crimes of the Future both run just longer than an hour—the director's climb to the top of the Canadian horror cinematic world starts here, and boy does it ever announce to the world what a singular talent was on the horizon. Six minutes into the film, a man strangles poor Kathy Graham to death, slits open her stomach, pours acid in the wound, and then slits his own throat.
There have probably been fewer debuts less auspicious than this one, though Cronenberg was no stranger to directing by 1975. The film's laborious exposition sets up the notion of genetically engineered parasites being used for organ transplants. Despite that, the film's got an exceedingly simple premise once it gets going: As a result of all the scientific shenanigans, a sexually transmitted virus ravages its way through the many inhabitants of a high-rise building—perhaps a portend to Cronenberg's later adaptation of "High-Rise" novelist J.G. Ballard's "Crash." Cronenberg's first take on the "zombie" film yields a film struggling with intimacy problems.
Later in his career, as Cronenberg began to whittle down his main characters, he would become a much richer filmmaker, more interested in the psychological profile of only a handful of characters. Here, however, his youthful energy is in full controlas infected women come on to and then infect horny dudes, like the poor sap who hooks up with the lovely Susan Petrie...
Lynn Lowry playsNurse Forsythe, one of the characters at the center of the film, who is in an extramarital relationship with the doctor investigating the outbreak, getting him all horned up in his office when he should be focusing on the case...
The film climaxes in the building's swimming pool, mingling sex and horror with fluid, perhaps preparing audiences for what was to come in his career. Most shocking of all is that the film was partially financed by artistic grants provided to Cronenberg by the Canadian government. They were outraged, understandably so, as this film is shocking for its time—coming out just a year after Texas Chainsaw Massacre—yet it's also astrange kin to those subtle abstinence parables of the 80s like Friday the 13th. It made it difficult to finance his next film, but some workarounds allowed him to make a more intimate look at the ravages of a communicable disease.
Rabid (1977)
Despite being barred from the Canadian Film Fund, the Canadian government, through various backchannels,helped him deliver his next film,Rabid. This was a more controlled kind of chaos than Shivers. Rather than a sprawling high-rise, this films starts in the Canadian countryside with a guy named Hart (Frank Moore, a dead ringer for young Christopher Walken) taking his girl Rose (Marilyn Chambers... yes, that Marilyn Chambers) for a ride on his motorcycle. At high speeds, the two meet with a bickering family in their enormous car and Rose is sent to a hospital with life threatening injuries.
At the hospital, a doctor uses an experimental skin grafting technique to repair Rose's injured body and organs, but instead it gives her a vampiric appendage under her arm that starts outlooking like a clitoris with a point before eventually becoming more phallic in nature. The psycho-sexual implications of all of this are mind-boggling, but Cronenberg sells it, wisely taking a risk on Chambers as his lead.
Chambers was known primarily as a performer in pornographic films, but that ultimately gave Cronenberg two advantages. One, he'd have a lead actress more willing to do the strange sexual things he wanted her to do, while also having an internationally recognizable name above the title. It paid off in both respects, with Chambers doing plenty of nudity along with all the vampiric infecting of anyone in arm's reach.
Now, as the film builds toward its climax—an infected takeover of Montreal—there are shades of him going nuts again, and the chaos is sublime in such a buttoned-down metropolitan area. This time around, the chaosseems more focused, more disciplined than it did two years earlier. Cronenberg was becoming more and more in control of his craft, going even more personal with his next film.
The Brood (1979)
Cronenberg channeled his experience of getting divorced from his first wife and battling her for custody of their daughter into this deeply dark satire of New Age cults. Whileappearing onthe CBC’sBob McLean Show, Cronenberg intimated that this was his version of Kramer vs. Kramer, "only more realistic." Couple that with the film itself, 1979's The Brood, andit should give youa pretty good idea of how his mind works.
In the film, mild-mannered Cronenberg stand-in Frank Carveth (Canadian actor Art Hindle) is devastated when psychologist cum New Age cult leader Dr. Hal Raglan (a sublime Oliver Reed)intensifies his professional dealingswith Frank's wife Nola (Samantha Eggar). The two are in the midst of a bitter custody battle over their daughter Candice, and Frank is afraid his daughter is being hurt by his soon-to-be ex-wife. The truth is far more disturbing and unsettling, however, as Nola's anger at her abusive upbringing has caused her to birth externalizations of her rage in the form of small dwarves who go around attacking the various targets of her anger.
With me so far? It works a lot better in film than it does in summation, as does nearly all of Cronenberg's work. The film's only nudity, proper, comes near the end with Eggar reveals the birthing process to her ex and her daughter. We've paired our still of the scene with Criterion's below. As you can see, they're more focused on the makeup effects, us on the nudity...
As each of his films became more successful than the last, critically and commercially, they would pave the way for Cronenberg to do bigger and better effects, next blowing up character actorLouis Del Grande's head in Scanners. Cronenberg, however, was just getting warmed up.
Videodrome (1983)
Long live the new flesh! So the saying goes inCronenberg's first big budget studio film which is easily one of his best and one of his most insane. Cronenberg attempts to process the beginning of the age of home video, channeling the various fears and anxieties of many filmmakers at the time into the story of sleazyToronto television producer named Max Renn (a never-better James Woods) always searching for the next exciting thing for his audience. His CIVIC-TV is established as a sort of underground station operating on the regular air, showing all manner of "softcore pornography and hardcore violence."
One of his engineers discovers a signal one night from a foreign television signal known only as Videodrome. In a red room, a woman is savagely attacked and eventually murdered, sending Renn on a quest to find out what Videodrome is and where it's coming from. While appearing on a talk show—alongside fake media guru Brian O'Blivion—Renn chats up radio psychologist Nicki Brand (Debbie Harry), offering to buy her dinner. After dinner, the two go back to his place to watch Videodrome and things get hot and heavy between them, with Harry making her first and only nude appearance on film, going topless as Woods pierces her ear...
Her sadomasochistic tendencies don't scare off Renn, who not only wants to spend more time with her, but wants to find out what Videodrome is all about. The answers he seeks are not easy to describe without experiencing them for yourself, but it involves mind control, Woods making out with a television, Harry burning her breast with a cigarette, stomach vaginas, pulsating Betamax videotapes, and some of the best practical effects you'll ever see in a movie, courtesy of Oscar-winning genius Rick Baker.
It was courageous for Harry to appear in this film, particularly for what it asked of her as an established personality. She was a well known musical commodity by this point in time, but had only made a handful of acting appearances in cheapie exploitation flicks. In retrospect, it's brilliant of her to appear in the film as both an actress and establish musical act. It roots the film very much in a time and place, adding all manner of twisted layers to the proceedings.
Along with John Landis' An American Werewolf in London and John Carpenter's The Thing, Videodrome is the quintessential early 80s practical effects horror film. Incredibly all three directors were working on their films at Universal at the same time, and there's a fantastic vintage interview withall three of them on the Criterion Collection Blu-ray.
The Dead Zone (1983)
Also made and released in 1983 was this Stephen King adaptation that had shades of Cronenbergian undertones, not least of which is the story's reliance on clairvoyance. For the first time, Cronenberg was working on a film that was not only based on previously published material, but also one in which he had no hand in writing the script. It shows to some extent, though this is above average for King adaptations, not quite as good as De Palma'sCarrie, but way better than the vast majority of King's work in Hollywood.
Rather than working with Discount Christopher Walken—a.k.a. Rabid'sFrank Moore—Cronenberg called on the services of the real McCoy. He wonderfully exploits—using that word in the best way possible—Walken's otherworldliness. He's a man that just doesn't seem to fit in society and few films really capture that quality the way this one does. Following a car accident that left him in a coma for five years, Walken's Johnny Smith is gifted with the ability to see a person's future by touching them, a gift that obviously proves to be both a blessing and a curse.
Roughly halfway through the film, Johnny discovers the identity ofa murderer the police have been tracking, identifying him as the Sheriff Tom Skerritt's Deputy. During the vision, we see him tear open Roberta Weiss' top, briefly exposing her breasts...
While this is the only nudity in the flick, it's appropriate that the breasts belong to a dead woman. Otherwise, how else would you have known this is a Cronenberg film?
The Fly (1986)
Easily Cronenberg's best known movie and the one the most people seem to have seen, The Fly's reputation precedes it, but thanks to Cronenberg working at the height of his power—at least in terms of budgetary and creative control—the film doesn't disappoint. Gore hounds will find plenty to love in the tale of scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), who has invented a teleportation device, and landed him an exclusive with scientific journalist Ronnie Quaife (Geena Davis). Side tangent, Goldblum and Davis' chemistry in this film—as it was in Transylvania 6-5000—is off the chart. I know that's such a weird thing to talk about in the midst of such a gory movie, but it's apparent why they got married a year later...
Anyway, Brundle is so convinced of his machine's ability to change mankind that he finally decides to test it on himself, but as the title might suggest, an insect shares the journey with him to the other pod, where their DNA fuses. As weeks go by, Brundle begins to undergo a number of bodily changes, at first gaining superhuman strength that he uses to pick up Joy Boushel in a bar. Bad news for Joy, Seth wants her to use his transport pods. Good news for us, as we get a fleeting look at her breasts as Brundle attempts to get her in the machine...
There's not much to say about The Fly that hasn't already been said. It's easily Cronenberg's most "commercial" film in the sense that it's the one closest to his sensibilities that can also be enjoyed by just about any general audience. Thirty-plus years later the effects still hold up, and not in the way that the Videodromepractical effects are almost charming by this point in time. The effects in The Fly are legitimately good, even by 2019 standards. If you've never seen it, why are you even reading this?
Dead Ringers (1988)
Cronenberg stays in the world of medical horror for his next film, Dead Ringers, starring Jeremy Irons in dual roles as twin gynecologists who emotionally manipulate themselves and a drug-addicted woman (Geneviève Bujold) with who they both fall in love... or at least lust. Loosely based on the real life story of twin gynecologistsStewart and Cyril Marcus, Irons plays Beverly and Elliot Mantel, whose successful working relationship is turned upside down when they are visited at their practice by actressClaire Niveau (Bujold). After discovering that she's suffering from a rare malady that will prevent her from having children, Beverly's feelings for her come to the forefront...
In a fit of jealousy over his twin spending less and less time with him, Elliot begins tricking Claire into thinking he's Beverly, a deception she soon discovers. More deceptions pile on from there, with Beverly spiraling into addiction to deal with his heartbreak, and Elliot soon coming apart over his desire to get back to the sense of normalcy they had prior to Claire coming into their lives. Not even a nighttime visit from a fantastically full frontal Heidi von Palleskecan cure the blues...
Irons put tremendous care and effort into giving two separate performances, to the point where they even gave him separate dressing rooms for each character. However, he and Cronenberg both added in intentional deceptions, having Irons do facial or vocal or physical tics that belonged to one brother while he was performing as the other. It's just one more way in which Cronenberg keeps one step ahead of the audience, constantly attempting to disorient and confuse us.
Naked Lunch (1991)
There are a number of great biopics of artists out there that do their subject right by making not only a biography of the author, but also a work that would feel right at home in the author's own canon. Paul Schrader did this with Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Sergei Parajanov with The Color of Pomegranates, and Cronenberg with Naked Lunch. While not an outright biopic of William S. Burroughs, Cronenberg's adaptation of the author's book of the same name incorporates biographical elements from Burroughs' own life.
Peter Weller stars as William Lee, anman who thinks he's a secret agent, but is really just a drug-addled exterminator getting high on his own supply. The film has a ton of dense imagery and elegantlyconstructed dialogue, but it's most assuredly not for everyone. Even as a Cronenberg fan, this one took me a long time to come around on. I have always admired both Cronenberg and Burroughs for including the accidental murder of Burroughs' own wife in a game of "William Tell" as a major plot point in the film, but there's something elusive about it to me. I'm not ever opposed to watching it again, though, as I think there's so much in there, you can't catch it all in your first ten viewings.
The film's only nudity is pretty Cronenbergian on its own, but also includes perhaps my favorite line in the entire film. Lee uncovers that his Doctor, Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider) is the mastermind behind an underground drug ring involving something called "black meat," but he can't find the doctor anywhere. That's because the good doctor has been hiding in disguise as a housekeeper named Fadela (Monique Mercure) who rips open her top before ripping off her skin to reveal... BENWAY!
Of course, as a Simpsons fan, I also can't resist...
Join us again next week when we close out our look at Cronenberg with everything from M. Butterfly to Maps to the Stars.
Check out the Other Directors in Our Ongoing "SKIN-depth Look”Series
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Most non-nude images via IMDb
The Brood non-nude images via Criterion
Videodrome non-nude image via Criterion
Dead Ringersnon-nude image via Criterion
