In the half a decade between his first two features, Cronenberg was basically like "fuck all that art school bullshit, here's some insane sci-fi body horror that eventually turns into a zombie movie with you really noticing." And while I wouldn't say this is necessarily a good movie, it's entertaining as hell. I mean, it's about horny mutant bugs that infect people and turn them into ravenous raping human monsters. Come on now. But, as a film–as cin•e•ma–it struggles in a variety of ways.
First and foremost, there is gigantic void when it comes to having a strong protagonist. It reminded me of a giallo film in that there were way too many characters AND no clearcut lead. OK, sure the handsome doctor with the bad hairline is the guy, but–hoo boy–he is one sleepy actor! Dr. Roger St. Luc is played by Paul Hampton, and somebody should have gotten this guy a coffee or maybe some cocaine or maybe, I don't know, just told him to speak up more?
Anyway, let's get into it... In a nice nod to his first two films, this begins with some voiceover work by none other than the central voice and star of those two films, Mr. Ronald Mlodzik, who plays general manager of a high-class apartment building outside of Montreal, which I'm sure nothing bad is going to happen at this idyllic island residence!
The perpetrator (who kinda looks like Fred Melamed) of the odd, almost ritualistic murder-suicide that opens the film is actually a doctor who our very own Dr. Roger St. Luc was scheduled to have lunch with that very same day. Despite this brutal, violent event, St. Luc meets with another former colleague for some samwhiches and they proceed to have a way too jovial of a lunch for two friends whose mentor/co-worker has, just hours earlier, gone and done a little murder-suiciding. But, hey, you have to deliver the exposition one way or the other and we get a lot of it here before they engage in the customary half-eaten pickle toss.
It would take one more phone conversation with that guy to convey the gist to the audience, but basically the dead doctor was trying to invent a parasite which would make mankind more full of life, I mean, I'm sorry, did I say "full of life," I meant "more willing to perpetuate sexual assault on anything with a pulse." Man, woman, child–it don't matter! In the mind of this crazy doctor, people had gotten too soft, had stopped knowing what it was like to enjoy things like sex and cherry pie. Oh god, the cherry pie guy. Please not the cherry pie guy!
Spoiler alert: his experiment was a success! And–yikes!–what a mistake that was. The murder-suicide was the result of the doctor trying to end the experiment before it spread, seeing the errs of his ways. The young lady he killed was just the island slut, you see. And I guess this is where I need to mention that David Cronenberg might have a little bit of an issue with young ladies and, I hate to say it, actual children. I'm not screaming "Let's cancel David Cronenberg!" but holy shit, I could've done without the multiple scenes involving literal children engaging in unscrupulous acts.
I am going through this filmography chronologically (DUH) and I'm going in cold each time, so I'm really hoping that this kids stuff doesn't become a real trend. You could ditch every child in this and not a lose thing. It's bad enough that the first woman is a 19-year-old who is oddly infantilized with a schoolgirl outfit. I mean, there's something here, right? I'm no prude. I'm just calling it like I see it.
Alright, back to the action. The bug had already spread, obviously, before the murder-suicide, because this movie exists. Multiple dudes have the bug in them and they are experiencing symptoms which include vomiting smaller pieces of the bug off their balcony onto an old lady's umbrella. That feat is accomplished by another quasi main character, played by the familiar-looking actor Joe Silver. That dude is a dick. He treats his wife, whom he is cheating on, like complete shit even before the bug has fully taken control of his mind and body.
At one point, we see a poster in the back of a shot that says "Sex is the invention of a clever venereal disease" and that is a very concise summation of this on a thematic level. The parallels to the great 2014 film It Follows are pretty clear and fun to think about.
And that's basically that. We're off to the races as more and more residents of this resort-like apartment building become infected. This, all of this, whatever you think of it, is all in service of showcasing some lovely 70s practical effects and monster design. The creature in this case being a tiny little bug, but it still packs a mean punch on screen.
For as dumb and as heavy-handed the plot is, there are some really strong subtle moments written into the script, like when the sleepy doctor is ignoring his smoking hot nurse/girlfriend while on the phone thinking about the bug which was created because men have been igorning their smoking hot nurse/girlfriends. A classic thing men do and have done which would necessitate a crazy doctor inventing a bloodthirsty parasite to fix. We have lost our vitality!
It's all really fun to look at, and occasionally fun to think about (when little kids aren't involved). Bottom line, you do at least get the sense of Cronenberg's talent here. Even some of the less exciting shots are really well done. And the action accelerates at such a fever pitch, it's kind of impossible not to get sucked in. Unlike actual V.D.s, you can catch this bug from simply kissing, and everybody gets this damn bug. Our sleepy hero doctor does his darnedest to fight off the infected lunatics but they get to him too. The movie ends with everyone either infected or dead and the hordes of zombified rapists leaving the island to do some more raping as a radio news broadcast airs describing all of the raping. Basically, there's a lot of raping. Probably should've trigger-warning'd this episode y'all oh well bye.
𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 3r 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝙲𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚗𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚐 – 𝚖𝚢 𝚌𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚠𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑/𝚛𝚎𝚠𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑 𝚘𝚏 𝙳𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚍 𝙲𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚗𝚋𝚎𝚛𝚐'𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚖𝚘𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚙𝚑𝚢. 𝙲𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚔 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚏𝚞𝚕𝚕 𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎...
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 337 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 339 ⫸
⫷ EPISODE 337 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 339 ⫸
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