Videodrome (1982) / eXistenZ (1999)

David Cronenberg doesn’t quite belong. Certainly highbrow critics tend to sequestrate him from the horror genre altogether (apparently something of a bad neighbourhood for an intelligent man to hang out in), on the other hand he is “spared” the inclusion into that other ghetto: science fiction. A safe conclusion would be: Cronenberg is a genre by himself. Videodrome took the onslaught of hyperreality head on and pulled no punches. That we as viewers hardly feel puzzled when James Woods starts to whip a leathery TV-set featuring Debbie Harry nor when he starts hallucinating (?) he is hiding and pulling a gun from a vaginal opening in his stomach doesn’t so much signify that we are unshockable or beyond help but rather that Cronenberg pulled these seductive, strangely reassuring images from the realm of our darkest desires. If we are honest with ourselves we know exactly what we see on screen: our unconscious mediated and laid bare.

eXistenZ is a loose follow-up that revisits some of the same obsessions 17 years on and for a new technological landscape. Here Cronenberg plays it loose and with a lightness of touch, which is rather becoming. It features some great details in fashion, a clever play on our expectations of seeing a movie, specifically what we expect of a new Cronenberg and a very down-to-earth representation of cyberspace. The powerful shot of a pale Jennifer Jason Leigh brooding over her broken console brilliantly captures the “addictive” symbioses with our technologies.