If we’ve learned anything from David Cronenberg’s previous films, it’s that he really loves diving into body horror. Videodrome, The Brood, The Fly, eXistenZ, and Shivers all dealt with the subject matter in different ways. But in Cronenberg’s latest film, Crimes of the Future, the body horror isn’t accidental or inflicted as a punishment. These people are choosing to change themselves in strange and unusual ways because they believe it’s the next step of human evolution.
Ahead of the film’s theatrical release this summer, Neon has released the first trailer for Crimes of the Future. And while some of the modifications and biotechnology may look similar to Cronenberg’s earlier films, they come off even weirder in this movie, because in this story, it’s not just science, it’s performance art.
Don’t worry if you didn’t understand much about that trailer. It’s pretty incompressible without the proper context. Fortunately, Neon also provided the synopsis for the film.
“As the human species adapts to a synthetic environment, the body undergoes new transformations and mutations. With his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux), Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), celebrity performance artist, publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. Timlin (Kristen Stewart), an investigator from the National Organ Registry, obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed … Their mission – to use Saul’s notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.”
Cronenberg wrote and directed Crimes of the Future, which will premiere in competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. The theatrical release will follow in June.
