VIDEODROME - Review By Greg Klymkiw at "Electric Sheep - A Deviant View of Cinema" (UK's premiere online journal of the most aberrant, heretically perverse and downright divergent motion picture product).

David Cronenberg, along with the likes of Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin, Peter Mettler and a clutch of other visionary filmmakers in English Canada, generated product which can be viewed as Canadian by simple virtue of the fact that both the style and content of the films could only have been made in a North American context that prided itself on uniquely indigenous qualities in spite (and perhaps even because) of the southerly Behemoth of Uncle Sam. And though plenty of Canadian dramatic product was (and often continues to be) almost unbearably tasteful, this has happily never been a problem for any of the aforementioned filmmakers – especially not David Cronenberg. “Tasteful” has seldom reared its ugly head anywhere near his films. Videodrome is as Canadian as Maple Syrup, beavers and the MacKenzie Brothers, but with the added bonus of almost hardcore sadomasochistic snuff-film-style torture weaving its way throughout the picture as narrative and thematic elements.

Read Greg Klymkiw's
full review at:
Electric Sheep
- a deviant view of cinema
HERE

Here are the full specs on the Arrow Video release: LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
Original uncompressed mono audio tracks for all films, Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for all films, Limited Edition packaging, fully illustrated by Gilles Vranckx, Limited Edition Exclusive Extras

VIDEODROME – BLU-RAY DISC 1 AND DVD DISC 2:
Restored high-definition digital transfer of the unrated version, approved by director David Cronenberg and cinematographer Mark Irwin, Audio commentary by Tim Lucas, the on-set correspondent for Cinefantastique Magazine and author of Videodrome: Studies in the Horror Film, David Cronenberg and the Cinema of the Extreme – A documentary programme featuring interviews with Cronenberg, George A. Romero and Alex Cox on Cronenberg’s cinema, censorship and the horror genre, Forging the New Flesh – A documentary programme by filmmaker Michael Lennick on Videodrome’s video and prosthetic make up effects, Videoblivion: A brand new interview with cinematographer Mark Irwin, A brand new interview with producer Pierre David, AKA Jack Martin – Dennis Etchison, author of novelizations of Videodrome, Halloween, Halloween II and III and The Fog, discusses Videodrome and his observations of Cronenberg’s script, The complete uncensored Samurai Dreams footage with additional Videodrome broadcasts with optional commentary by Michael Lennick, Helmet Test and Betamax – Two featurettes by Michael Lennick on effects featured in the film, Camera (2000) Cronenberg’s short film starring Videodrome’s Les Carlson, Fear on Film: A round table discussion from 1982 with Cronenberg, John Carpenter, John Landis and Mick Garris, Promotional featurette with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Cronenberg, James Woods, Deborah Harry and Rick Baker, Original theatrical trailer

DAVID CRONENBERG’S EARLY WORKS: BLU-RAY DISC 3 AND DVD DISC 4 [LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE]: High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of four Cronenberg films, Transfer (1966) & From the Drain (1967), Cronenberg’s previously unavailable short films newly restored by the Toronto International Film Festival [7 & 12 mins], Stereo (1969) & Crimes of the Future (1970): Cronenberg’s early amateur feature films, shot in and around his university campus, prefigure his later work’s concerns with strange institutions (much like Videodrome’s Spectacular Optical) as well as male/female separation (Dead Ringers) and ESP (Scanners). Newly restored from original lab elements [65 & 70 mins], Transfer the Future – Author and critic Kim Newman discusses Cronenberg’s early works

COLLECTOR’S BOOKLET [LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE]
An illustrated 100-page hardback book featuring new writing including Justin Humphreys on Videodrome in a modern context, Brad Stevens on the alternate versions, Caelum Vatnsdal on Cronenberg’s early works, extracts from Cronenberg on Cronenberg featuring Cronenberg’s reminiscences of getting started in filmmaking and shooting all the films in this collection, plus more, illustrated with original archive stills

DETAILS:
Region: B
Rating: 18
Cat No: FCD1133
Duration: 6/13/63/63/89 mins
Language: English
Subtitles: English SDH
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1/1.33:1/1.66:1
Audio: Mono
Discs: 4
Colour/B&W

MAPS TO THE STARS (TIFF 2014 - TIFF GALA) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

In Hollywood, the eyes of the Dead are always upon you. Only the Dead see the Truth and only in Death can Truth be found.

Mia Wasikowska
handily
brandishes the
Genie Award
Bludgeon
(the Canadian version of an OSCAR)

Maps to the Stars (2014)
Dir. David Cronenberg
Starring: Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams, Evan Bird

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Their boredom becomes more and more terrible. They realize that they've
been tricked and burn with resentment. Every day of their lives they read
the newspapers and went to the movies. Both fed them on lynchings,
murder, sex crimes, explosions, wrecks, love nests, fires, miracles,
revolutions, war. This daily diet made sophisticates of them. The sun is
a joke. Oranges can't titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be
violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies. They have been
cheated and betrayed. They have slaved and saved for nothing."

- Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust

The movie business is creepy.

Its heart and soul resides in the City of Angels and surrounding environs of Hollywood, the Dream Factory. The place hasn't really changed much since 1939 when Nathanael West wrote his seminal novel about the Hollywood underbelly "The Day of the Locust". There's more smog now, but the sun still shines bright and the desperation of its populace, especially those in the movie business, is just as sick, venal and pathetically palpable.

And the business? No changes here, either.

It's mind-numbingly cruel, shallow, exploitative, backstabbing, bereft of truth, lacking in taste and just plain evil. That it's a world full of hustlers, whores, scumbags, flakes and empty-vessel operators is not so much the cherry on the sundae, but rather the undigested peanuts and corn flecking an already-unhealthy-looking loaf of faecal matter. The poor are still poor, and desperate. Even the rich and powerful, are desperate.

This odious backdrop allows Canadian visionary David Cronenberg to take no prisoners and serve up one of his most agreeably sickening films in some time. Maps to the Stars is in deliciously poor taste, nastily funny, blessed with a consistently gnawing malevolence and makes for one hell of a Mr. Toad-like wild-ride through the Indy 500 of broken dreams in contemporary Hollywood, the same living Hell Mr. West wrote about 75 years ago. L.A. still burns.

Cronenberg is, of coursed, blessed with just the right amount of petrol to torch Hollywood. Bruce Wagner's screenplay is imbued with the rather perverse quality of plotting that's often quite compelling, but in its own way, seems intentionally perfunctory. Too often, I found I was pointed precisely where the movie was headed. I don't think, however, that's a flaw in the writing, so much as the point of the film (and screenplay).

First and foremost, the plot is and, in fact, must be secondary to the WORLD of the film and as such, feeds into it. Secondly and perhaps most importantly, the manner in which the plot-points play out are, in a perversely brilliant manner the very thing that contributes to the film's satire. Hollywood, especially now, is built upon is providing plot elements that no longer surprise. Such is the case here, but both Wagner and Cronenberg mask this very well. For half the film's running time you feel like the elements of plot are assembled to obscure the fact that there are only certain directions it can go and by the midpoint, I found it relatively easy to know exactly where the train was headed.

That the film is about the sick vapidity of making movies that are themselves even more vapid and familiar, is the brave sign of a writer fully in command of what makes satire so special. When you experience the real thing, as you do here, it's a wonder to behold.

And can there be anything more delightfully, nastily and appropriately vapid than the central characters in this film? Nope. This, of course, is a testament also to just how brilliant the film's cast is in rendering the emptiness beneath their shells, but doing so with no tongue-in-cheek and always making them real. These are people you'd never want to know (or be), but that's what makes them even more compelling.

Given the utter emptiness of the people in this world, I was delighted that Wagner's screenplay seemed to inspire Cronenberg, his cinematographer and production designer to always hammer home the hollow qualities of the world and characters. Everything takes on a kind of flat smog filtered look. The consistency of the lighting from interior to exterior, from day to night and back again (and then some), all managed to maintain a kind of ugliness that was strangely beautiful and ghastly. The homes most of these people live in are filled with wide, open spaces and yet, they seem empty and bereft of any personal touches on the parts of the characters. The environs appear to have all been art directed, or, if you will, interior designed.

This might be the most hollow film made in the past couple of decades and to that I say: "Huzzah!"

So, speaking of hollow, Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) is a gorgeous, self-absorbed movie star who is desperate to land a role in a remake of her late mother'a big starring role. Essentially, she'll be playing her mother. From any reasonable perspective, she'd be perfect for it, but what in Hollywood is ever reasonable? There are mysterious nagging doubts amongst the suits at the studio, most of whom are seldom seen. They also never return phone calls from either Havana or her agent. Via Wagner's script, Cronenberg deftly manoeuvres through the utterly ludicrous ins and out of Havana pathetically attempting to land the role, which is, in many ways, the vessel of emptiness that carries us into the heart of hollow Hell.

Havana's biggest weapon, it seems, are regular sessions with Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), a new-agey, ubiquitous paid-programming-TV-fixture who provides massage-therapy-self-help to Hollywood royalty and any stupidly rich person who can afford his outrageous fees. Weiss is married to Cristina (Olivia Williams), a doting stage Mom to their horrendously spoiled child star son Benjie (Evan Bird), who must constantly placate the studio suits that he's no longer hooked on drugs. He is, after all, the star of what must be a loathsome, but successful studio franchise entitled "The Bad Babysitter".

Moving down the Hollywood Food Chain, a bit closer to Nathanael West territory, our seemingly satirical journey places a fair bit of emphasis upon Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), a beautiful burn victim with a close Twitter relationship with Carrie Fisher which lands her the coveted job of being a personal assistant to Havana. Agatha is involved in a flirty, but borderline serious relationship with Jerome (Robert Pattinson), a handsome limo driver-actor-screenwriter who's at first repelled by Agatha's burn scars, but gradually comes to accept them. Sadly, whilst relationships in business are everything in Hollywood, relationships on a human level take a back seat. Jerome's limo, of course, has a very big back seat and he's more than willing to use it when aging stars require some backdoor servicing from his trusty sword.

This is probably not what the doctor ordered. Agatha, you see, is completely out of her gourd. Just released from years of incarceration in a Florida loony bin, pumped full of anti-schizo pills and fuelled with a burning (as it were) desire to make amends with those whom she wronged. Many years ago, she set the family home ablaze in a fit of pyromaniacal insanity, attempted to murder her little brother and in the process was horrifically burned herself.

A family reunion is not desired by her Mom, Dad and Brother, but in a town of six degrees of separation, it seems inevitable. Chances are also good, it's not going to be warm and fuzzy.

Have I mentioned the ghosts yet?

No? Ah, good. Well, yes. many of our characters receive regular visits from them and these creepy apparitions are prone to placing horrendously nasty ideas into the heads of those they haunt.

Have I mentioned the incest yet?

No? Ah, excellent. I'll leave it all for you to discover.

Have I mentioned the killings yet?

No? Lovely. You're in for a real treat.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** Four Stars

Maps To The Stars is a Gala Presentation at TIFF 2014.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ORDER ANYTHING FROM AMAZON BY USING THE LINKS BELOW. CLICKING ON THEM AND THEN CLICKING THROUGH TO ANYTHING WILL ALLOW YOU TO ORDER AND IN SO DOING, SUPPORT THE ONGING MAINTENANCE OF THE FILM CORNER. BUY MOVIES HERE FOR SOMEONE YOU LOVE! OR HELL, BE SELFISH, AND BUY THEM JUST FOR YOURSELF

AMAZON.CA

AMAZON.COM

AMAZON.UK

SCANNERS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - "From Within: The Films of David Cronenberg" - a TIFF Cinematheque Retrospective during "DAVID CRONENBERG: EVOLUTION" a major exhibition (including Special Guest Events and MORE) via the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) until January 19, 2014 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox

SCANNERS, by master Canadian director David Cronenberg, is a creepy science fiction thriller dealing with a 1950s maternity drug gone seriously wrong, resulting in over 200 children being deformed - or, depending on how you look at these things - endowed with ultra-powerful telepathic and telekinetic abilities. Years later, they are dubbed "Scanners" by Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan), the mad doctor who created these freaks of nature. The most powerful of the afflicted and now grown men, the seemingly gentle, confused street bum Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) and Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside), a malevolent, corporate-styled automaton of destruction, both become locked in a dangerous struggle for supremacy between rival corporations wishing to control the scanners as weapons. Scanners can make heads explode. This is not a pretty sight.

SCANNERS (1981) *****
Dir. David Cronenberg
Starring: Stephen Lack, Michael Ironside, Patrick McGoohan, Jennifer O'Neill, Lawrence Dane, Louis Del Grande, Mavor Moore

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of the greatest pharmaceutical tragedies of the 20th Century was the development of the drug Thalidomide in the late 50s. Meant to alleviate "anxiety" or uh, "hysteria" in pregnant women,` it was yet another invasive, sexist patriarchal attempt to keep the "weaker sex" in their place. It was essentially a drug borne out of the "Can they just shut up and quit whining" School of Medicine. Its effects upon the babies born from mothers who ingested the drug were disastrous. Children were born with malformed limbs and/or deaf and/or blind and any number of other physical abnormalities. The lucky ones lived. A much larger percentage died.

Of course, this medical botch-up was also happening smack dab in the middle of the Cold War wherein murky, nasty psychological experiments were being carried out by nefarious corporate and government agencies in the name of furthering the arms race, military superiority, espionage, interrogation techniques and other horrendous areas of mind control. All this despicable nonsense actually ran rampant in an era where millions of people were being murdered by their own governments for absolutely nothing in wars that meant even less - notably Vietnam.

Out of this scary real-life backdrop, David Cronenberg's considerable imagination ran amuck and he delivered Scanners, a chilling tale of adults who were products of a Thalidomide-like drug. Their abnormality, however, is psychological and results in extreme mental overcrowding which, when pushed by anger, anxiety and other highly-charged emotions, results in telepathic abilities that can create major physical damage. Just thinking about something is enough to make it happen.

Cronenberg delivers on all manner of shocks and scares, but does so with resonance on both visceral and thematic levels. His clever screenplay, blending a variety of new spins on old genre tropes and his cool, controlled direction always focuses on characters living amidst sterile corporate offices, fluorescent lights washing over whiter than white labs, lonely, grotty warehouse spaces and a very strange Montreal bereft of spirit, but infused with a kind of faux futuristic interior design and architecture.

He layers these visuals which, on their own, might be mistaken as somewhat drab, but the sum of his complex assemblage of locations parallels the richly layered actions and goals of the film's central players Patrick McGoohan (a Father), Michael Ironside (a Son) and Stephen Lack (a Holy Spirit). Cronenberg wisely roots the film in this strange trinity wherein all three play out a series of roles: of fathers and sons, creators and their experiments and perhaps the most ruthlessly complex of all, rival siblings.

There's even a strange Mary Magdalene figure played by the gorgeous model Jennifer O'Neill (that Summer of 42 girl who, in grief, gently took the virginity of young Gary Grimes in the classic Robert Mulligan weeper). O'Neill's wooden line deliveries and porcelain iciness seem a perfectly apt tent pole for Vale and Revok to find themselves on opposite sides of.

Early on in the film, we're introduced to Cameron Vale (Lack) as he wanders aimlessly through a downtown mall food court, shoving leftovers down his gullet as the flicker of fluorescent lights and constant chatter plays on him until he is driven to a state of near madness - his thoughts and emotions spilling out into the ether and physically affecting two affluent female diners whom he assumes are mocking him. It's a chilling moment. We get the sense he's responsible for the seizure that starts to afflict one of the women, but we also sense nobody else knows this - not, really, even Vale himself.

Later on, Vale finds himself strapped down on a gurney in a hollow warehouse. Here he meets the scientist Paul Ruth who explains with a creepy matter-of-factness (in a way only the great Patrick McGoohan seemed capable of):

"You are 35 years old, Mr. Vale. Why are you such a derelict? Such a piece of human junk? The answer's simple. You're a scanner, which you don't realize. And that has been the source of all your agony. But I will show you now that it can be a source of great power."

The power, however, is loaded with dangerous implications - not the least of which is individuality being sucked dry from unique individuals like Vale and usurped by others for their own needs, their own goals. These individuals are viewed by the world and, most of all, the Status Quo as freaks - freaks to be co-opted and/or manipulated to wreak havoc instead of providing the world with what's genuinely special about them. It's a battle between individuals, or rather, the struggle between individuality for good or for evil.

It's an ages old struggle, but Cronenberg makes it feel fresh by always adhering to the simple narrative power of trinity which is what allows it to yield complexity. Scanners is, first and foremost, a truly great thriller - not only because it confounds, astounds and often terrifies the living crap out of us, but because it accomplishes all this by being a film that was, in its time, ahead of its time.

As such, it's a film for now, and forever.

"Scanners" is playing as an entry in the series: "From Within: The Films of David Cronenberg" - a TIFF Cinematheque Retrospective during "DAVID CRONENBERG: EVOLUTION" a major exhibition (including Special Guest Events and MORE) via the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) until January 19, 2014 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. For showtimes, playmates and tickets, visit the TIFF website HERE.

SHIVERS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - #TIFF 2013 - Cinematheque Restoration - An Orgy of Canuck Carnage!!!

Surgical Shenanigans - Cronenberg Style, of course

Shivers (1975) Dir. David Cronenberg *****
TIFF 2013 - Cinematheque Restoration
Starring: Paul Hampton, Joe Silver, Barbara Steele, Lynn Lowry, Susan Petrie, Alan Migicovsky
Review By Greg Klymkiw

David Cronenberg is responsible for my teenage delinquency. I desperately wanted to see "Shivers" when it opened first-run. Alas, I couldn't gain entrance to the cinema because it was slapped with a Restricted Adult rating (the Manitoba equivalent to an X-rating). This peeved me to no end. The ads, featuring a gorgeous woman hanging upside down from a bathtub with a grimace of utter horror attached to her face tantalized me to no end. That the movie starred my favourite scream queen Barbara Steele was icing on the cake. I tried to get in, but was turned away by the cashier for not having the necessary I.D. So what's a red-blooded hoser movie geek to do? Well, I did what any North End wrong-side-of-the-tracks Ukrainian boy in Winnipeg would do - I painstakingly forged my own fake I.D. It worked so well, I not only gained entrance to "Shivers", but discovered that it successfully got me past Fat April, the door-lady who kept watch at the Kildonan Motor Hotel Beverage Room. Soon, I went into business. I began to forge fake I.D.s all the way through high school. My reputation for fine forgeries extended far and wide. Needless to say, my illicit activities proved to be most lucrative. For years I longed to relay this tidbit to Mr. Cronenberg. I finally got my chance at a small dinner party. I was introduced to him and I immediately launched into my tale of forgery, deception and entrepreneurial initiative - crediting him solely for my corruption. His response, however, was quite unexpected. Mr. Cronenberg looked at me blankly for a moment, turned around and walked away. Disappointing as this proved to be, I eventually chalked it up to the fact that perhaps his tummy was infested with an orgy of blood parasites.

*****

Imagine you're a delivery boy strolling down the hallway of a brand new luxury high-rise. A grotesquely corpulent old woman with moles and hairs on her face (stained with cheap, smudged makeup and blood stains sustained during a parasite attack in the laundry room), pokes her head out of a doorway and moans at you lasciviously: "I'm hungry." She waits for the response you're too shocked to give. "I'm hungry!" she intones almost desperately. Again, you're too agog to say anything. Lunging violently at you, her teeth bared, she screams, "I'm hungry for love!"

The violation you suffer as she sates her unholy desires, will last only as long as it takes for you to succumb to the gooey, gelatinous blood parasite she deposits down your throat as she sucks face with you. Within minutes - perhaps even seconds - you'll be mounting the porky old sow and ramming your pulsating rod of manhood into her thatch of hair pie.

And it will be glorious!

MIGICOVSKY the MIGHTY

Welcome to David Cronenberg's Shivers, his first commercial feature film that took the world by storm while inspiring incredulous Canuck pundits to demand government accountability as this film represented a very early investment from the federal agency that eventually became known as Telefilm Canada. Pundits and politicians be damned, however. Shivers was not only a huge hit, but it immediately established Cronenberg as a true talent to be reckoned with.

It's a great picture and still holds a place, after more helpings than I could ever possibly imagine, as my all time favourite David Cronenberg film. Other work might be more polished, but nothing Cronenberg ever did even begins to approach the mad, hilarious, repugnant and utterly horrifying experience he served up to audiences the same way one might offer up a soiled, steaming barf bag to a stewardess after a bout of air sickness.

The first time I ever saw the movie, I was thoroughly flabbergasted. Every few minutes, a story beat moved the picture ever-forward into territory of the most increasing, mounting and almost delectably foul kind.

The movie never once lets up - and even between scenes of carnage, Cronenberg served up some of the strangest and most downright creepy goings-on I'd ever seen and even now, it's still up there on the regurgitation meter.

MORE MIGICOVSKY ACTION THAN
YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT!!!

Most importantly, the picture is not only a scare-fest, but it's replete with all manner of nasty, dark laughs. Not that the humour is ever tongue-in-cheek - all of it comes naturally out of the utterly unnatural situation. Pre-dating the AIDS crisis, Cronenberg links sex with death. It's a delightfully simple tale involving a selection of residents and employees of an ultra high rise complex on an island on the St. Lawrence in Montreal. A new form of parasitical venereal disease begins to spread like wildfire within this luxury community gated by its island borders. The disease turns its victims into homicidal sex maniacs.

I kid you not. Allow me to repeat that:

HOMICIDAL SEX MANIACS.

And what a frothy concoction Shivers truly is with all manner of viscous emissions - blood parasites being vomited from a balcony onto an old lady's clear plastic umbrella, parasites roiling and bubbling just under the surface of Alan Migicovsky's sexy, hairy belly, a lithe, nude body of a lassie formerly adorned in a school uniform who gets her midriff sliced open, the insides then drenched in acid and, of course a magnificent 70s cast of terrific actors (notably, the wonderful late Joe Silver as the deli-loving doctor and Alan Migicovsky as the ultra-creepy philandering hubby) PLUS a whole whack o' babes (from pretty Susan Petrie as the weepy wifey, Lynn Lowry as the drop-dead gorgeous nurse and the heart-stoppingly sexy British scream queen Barbara Steele who appeared in so many 60s horror classics).

Of course, anyone interested in seeing the beginnings of Cronenberg's career-long obsession with finding horror in the human body, it doesn't get better than this - plenty of fat for eggheads to nibble on here.

The best news is that the movie has been restored and probably hasn't looked as gorgeous since Cronenberg himself had to approve final colour timings on the very first prints run at the lab back in the 70s. Shivers got so much play throughout the 70s and early 80s that I don't recall ever seeing a 35mm film print that wasn't caked in dirt, scratches and splices.

Stunningly, Cronenberg manages, in one salient area, to match the great Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Hitch, of course, infused utter terror in the minds of millions who dared to take a shower. In Shivers, Cronenberg delivers one of the most horrendous bathtub violations ever committed to celluloid. Best of all, the sequence involves the horror goddess revered by every adolescent boy in the 70s - Barbara Steele. In Mario Bava's Black Sunday, Steele had a metallic mask of Satan with humungous spikes inside of it pounded brutally into her pretty face. As horrific as that was, it's kid stuff to what Steele endures in Shivers.

And to that - a toast! God bless you, Mr. Cronenberg, God bless you!!!

The restored print of "Shivers" (colour correction personally supervised by David Cronenberg) has its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2013) as a precursor to a major TIFF retrospective devoted to his work and the exciting new exhibition "Cronenberg: Evolution", both of which will unveil at TIFF Bell Lightbox later in the Fall Season. For tickets visit the TIFF website HERE.

A DANGEROUS METHOD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Cronenberg's boring Masterpiece Theatre episode of "Jung and the Art of Spanking" is now in theatrical release. Please avoid it!

A Dangerous Method (2011) dir. David Cronenberg
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley

*

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When David Cronenberg is good, he is very, very good.

When he is bad, he’s cerebral.

A Dangerous Method is dour, dull and decidedly humourless. That said, the first few minutes do suggest we’re in for a hootenanny of the highest order. The score, oozing with portent over a twitching, howling, clearly bonkers Keira Knightley, thrashing about in a horse-drawn carriage as it hurtles towards Carl Jung’s Swiss nuthouse, initially suggested a belly flop into the maw first pried open by such Cold War wacko-fests like The Snake Pit or Shock Corridor.

Alas, Cronenberg seems to have abandoned his pulp sensibilities and instead appears to be making an Atom Egoyan movie fused with Masterpiece Theatre. Sorry David, Atom Egoyan makes the best Atom Egoyan movies. And Egoyan has never, nor will he ever make Masterpiece Theatre. However, if Cronenberg himself genuinely fused Masterpiece Theatre with The Snake Pit and, say, Salon Kitty or The Story of O, with dollops of the madhouse scenes in Ken Russell's The Music Lovers, then he might have generated something not guaranteed to induce snores.

Cronenberg’s unwelcome return to the cold and clinical approach from his pre-Eastern Promises and A History of Violence oeuvres quashes all hope for a rollicking good wallow in lunacy.

Come on, David, we’re dealing with psychoanalysis and sex here.

A little oomph might have been in order. (Or as Norman Jewison is wont to say, "A little bit of the old razzle-dazzle.")

Lord knows Cronenberg’s dealt deliciously with psychoanalysis and sex before – most notably in The Brood. It starred a visibly inebriated Oliver Reed, crazily cooing about "the Shape of Rage" amid spurts of horrific violence laced with a riveting creepy tone. Most notably the movie provided us with the indelible image of a semi-nude, utterly barmy Samantha Eggar adorned with monstrous pus sacks dangling from her flesh, licking globs of gooey, chunky afterbirth from a glistening mutant baby expunged from one of the aforementioned pus sacks.

Now, THAT'S entertainment!

Annoyingly, no similar shenanigans are on view in A Dangerous Method. It’s pretty much a Masterpiece Theatre-styled period chamber drama with with Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) jousting with his mentor-rival Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) betwixt spanking sessions with Keira Knightley, a daft want-to-be-psychiatrist with Daddy issues.

Sadly, no proper views of open palms connecting with buttocks or slap imprints on said buttocks are afforded to us.

A pity.