Film Review — Crimes of the Future (2022)
★★★☆☆ Cronenberg’s body horror return packs one organ too many
In a near future where humanity is evolving, a performance artist is approached by a man looking to showcase his extraordinary child.
Welcome back, Dave. How we’ve missed you. Returning with his first body horror since 1999’s Existenz, and nearly a full decade since his last effort of any kind, David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future was one of my most anticipated films of 2022.
One, because he’s one of my all-time favourite filmmakers, and two, my modern memories of the man are no longer tied to his bizarre appearances in the abysmal Star Trek: Discovery.
Teaming up once again with trusted star Viggo Mortensen, Crimes of the Future — completely unrelated to his early film of the same name — is pretty much what you’d expect from a Cronenberg body horror. Pleasure and pain merged together; internal beauty opened up for all to see, feeling like an expansion of transgressive ideas put forth so brilliantly in Dead Ringers.
But unlike the vast majority of his daring and divisive body of work, I struggled to find the same level of appreciation here. Cronenberg certainly hasn’t lost a step in his ability to provoke, but I do think there were too many ideas in the mix. A consequence of world-building that left many of the more intriguing (and alluring) concepts frustratingly underexamined.
Still, the ambition is appreciated, and the execution remains unrivalled. No one does it quite like the Canadian maestro. His big comeback may have left me a little cold on first viewing, but I’m deeply grateful he’s still here, giving us his visions of humanity in all its horny and horrific splendour.
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