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Aug 03, 2016
That's right, America, it's time for a summer Cronenberg retrospective, beginning with one of his earlier examples of twisted genius. I say earlier, but at this point he'd been making films for about 20 years, & much of the goo & gore has been replaced by a more finessed, literary horror (although the dream sequence & the ending will give you a jolt of his signature bodily gross-out abilities). Themes of perceptual distortion, collapse of empire, erotic angst & rapture, against a persistently thrilling backdrop of medical phantasmagoria...Jeremy Irons drops the atom bomb on his role playing both twins, & his co-star Bujold never flinches. As in other Cronenberg films, part of the horror is helplessly watching a loved one spiral into a surreal & lethal & irreversible fate. Brilliant film, total classic, better now than when I watched it those two or three dozen times in high school (I know!?). Five mutant female stars, people. CR