If I had a nickel for every time a former Twilight star starred in a David Cronenberg movie I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.
I saw it at my college anime club meetup and had no idea how much body horror I was getting into. Was definitely better seeing it in public than by myself! Unfortunately most of the club members found it confusing and dated (fair enough I guess). Meanwhile the sheer horror and beauty of the animation set my brain into overdrive and I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks.
Yeah it truly blew me away. It was an arthouse theater so I think people were expecting a Fantastic Planet sort of thing and the viscera shocked them. If you ever get a chance to see it on the big screen take it its truly breathtaking
Watching Akira was the most surprising experience in a good way, I watched it with my dad and he said he watched it a very long time ago and we had just finished the shitty Blade anime so we both went in expecting a cheesy 80's anime and instead got a masterful piece of political body horror
This is why I subbed to this channel in the first place - to hear my parasocial bestie May excitedly tell me about the newest fucked-up cinematic disaster and/or masterpiece she's seen. Not that I don't love the other stuff you've branched out into, but I'd be very sad if you didn't make one of these every once in a while.
I really liked Crimes of the Future, but Jurassic World was playing really loudly in the theater next to us so there were several times when there was a quiet and serious moment and distantly you'd hear dramatic french horns or someone getting eaten by a dinosaur lol. Didn't detract form the experience definitely changed it
One of the most interesting stories from my childhood involved The Fly. I don't remember this but my dad uses it a lot as an anecdote on my weirdness lol. Apparently, when I was about 3, my parents put us to bed to watch The Fly. I snuck out of bed and sat behind the couch, in complete silence, and watched pretty much all of the transformation scenes. You know what got me busted? I was laughing. Hysterically. Like it was just the funniest thing to ever be. My parents put me to bed but I guess I really enjoyed it because I started demanding they put it on again. They thought, "This kid is gonna run out of here like the wind the second weird stuff starts to happen!" But nope lol. No. Not at all. I laughed and clapped and started telling people it was my favourite movie. Can you imagine asking a 3-4 year old girl what her favorite movie is and her responding with laughter and enthusiasm, "The Fly"? Idk I think I'd even be weirded out and I was literally that kid lol. I also made my dad let me watch all three Exorcist films when I was 11. I said I wanted to watch more horror and he said I couldn't handle it, so I asked what the scariest movie ever was, he said The Exorcist. We discussed. There are 3. I said ok, if I can watch them all, will you let me watch ANY horror? I stayed up. Watched all three. By myself because my sister was too scared. My verdict? The second one sucked lol. Tbh Event Horizon had a way, way bigger impact on me than The Exorcist did. Like the doctor talking about the void and how good it feels, whoa dude, that's a bit much for a child lol. Event Horizon introduced a manner of thinking that creeped me out. Hellraiser has the same thing but it wasn't as unsettling for child me. Demons and monsters and murder didn't scare me. Embracing the void and losing all sense of yourself? Yeah that did it lol. No wonder I love Lovecraft's style of fear.
Fetish for surgery? Reminds me of a certain rock opera featuring little glass vials. Unlike that mess of a movie, this sounds like it actually explores the themes it sets up
Oh lawd you just brought up an entire year of my life watching that movie over and over for local plays every Goth/Burlesque theatre group was producing.
I loooove Cronenberg, he's my fave director, and I ADORED this movie. My partner and I went and saw it on opening night, wearing matching "david cronenberg sex pervert film club" shirts (that I made). There was only like six people other than us in the theatre. We both loved the movie because she is a creepy weirdo too, and it was an excellent date night watch for us. I don't understand why it got so much hate. It was everything I wanted and then some.
I loved it as well. Didn't see it in the theater, but there is a good chance I'll never go to a theater again because even 6 people is 5 too many. Cronenberg just isn't for everyone, surprisingly. As much as I want to see a child cut open to witness his plastic digesting organ, I'm starting to learn other people may look at you weird when you bring it up during polite conversation? Also, I bet those t-shirts are dope.
Even as a big Eli Roth stan, The Green Inferno was a mostly embarrassing, underwhelming, cheap mess, but that dismemberment scene was one of the best moments of cinematic violence I've ever seen. To see that with a crowd, at a fucking Blumhouse movie no less, was pure silver-screen nirvana.
I loved The Green Inferno because it was just a comical level of violence and all the characters were hate-able enough to make it hilarious when they got got. I love The Green Inferno because it’s a movie about bad people and it also allows me to be a bad person for two hours and I’ll get slightly injured on this hill
I'm gonna be honest, I've seen that movie three times and can't remember any of it, other than it being annoying and me cheering when any of the characters died horribly. I legit can't remember any of the kills.
may you are genuinely one of my favorite horror and experimental movie channels. i never see other channels cover the movies you do and i am always excited for your analysis!
Saw this with my dad and like 3 other people in the cinema. We both loved it but one of the other people left about 30 minutes in. Also a confused man that was looking for his daughter came into the theatre and started shouting for a minute or two (while Viggo was being operated on in the sarcophagus). Very surreal experience
I know it's probably a less than original statement to make about a film and maybe it's just cause i'm a trans myself but I found the ending in particular really resonated with me as this idea of spending years going against what you feel is right and experiencing a moment of realization that just brings you to tears
I don't handle Body Horror very well, especially in visual media, so I'm tapping out at 8:24 as suggested, but I'm really glad you had a good time with this movie, and I'm kind of delighted to know that this is how Viggo Mortensen's career has progressed, lmao.
Have you seen the film Titane?? I would love to hear your opinion on it. I watched it when i was abroad in Prague and I remember the absolute horror that rippled through the half drunk audience. It was honestly one of the most memorable theatre experiences ever.
love finding people into this movie. as the credits ran in the theater all i could think about is how weird it is that multiple people gathered in one place to watch that. i do think the movie is a sprinkle of videodrome and also pretty conceptually similar to crash, and there he flat out states what he’s doing in his films. “the reshaping of the human body by modern technology” as the “crude sci-fi concept that floats on the surface and doesn't threaten anybody” when at its core it’s that “the car crash is a fertilizing rather than a destructive event-a liberation of sexual energy that mediates the sexuality of those who have died with an intensity impossible in any other form." i mean surgery is the new sex, sex is like surgery is a succinct version of that. surgery (and sex) as fertilizing events for ecstasy and self realization. and one thing i like about cronenberg is that self realization is very explicitly revealed as a somewhat communal experience. we literally make and build ourselves in relation to and alongside others. in other words long, live the stussy!
Girl you give me so much joy. Every new video on absolutely gritty, disturbing, abhorrent content you post have me giggling in anticipation. Thank you for everything you do!
Have you seen Mad God by Phil Tippett? It's an ocean of weird with islands of gross, but it adds up to being, um, beautiful? (Apologies if you've addressed it in a previous video)
I watched this up until the spoiler point, stopped and watched the movie, then came back and finished this video. Thank you for convincing me to finally watch this movie. It was pretty great 👍
Literally had no idea you had a significant finnish audience. Propably tells about how much we talk to eachother lmao. Anyway, Cheers! Love your work ❤️ - A fellow weirdo from The land of Santa claus and Alchoholism
My overall opinion of the movie was so-so but I saw Men in theaters, and felt absolute disgust, awe and joy while watching the one other person in the theater walk out during the ending scene (you know, *that* scene).
This was my first Cronenberg movie, and altogether? I was very pleased with it. I was absolutely obsessed with the practical effects, I love that stupid breakfast chair with my whole heart. My biggest issue, though, was that it was *too* robust a world for just a film. I wish they'd given him like, a 12 episode 1 season TV series to just go fucking ham on, because there was *so* much going on, so many amazing themes and politics and motifs and imagery, it just felt like a waste to have to cram it into 1 movie, and that a lot of what he wanted to say was cut off at the knees in order to fit it into a decent run time. That said, it did result in me and my partner then hitting up the local cinema for every Cronenberg film they were putting on, and I got to sit there, mouth agape grinning like a kid at a candy shop, watching Videodrome. So this movie definitely gets at least a 4/5 from me for introducing me to this man and his epic fetishes. (Crash was a fucking marathon to endure, and I loved every second)
This video was the second Cronenberg discussion I had seen in as many days, so naturally I paused this to finally sit down and watch Videodrome for the first time. I deadass messaged my husband and called James Wood's ab hole his 'Tummussy'... now you're telling me the TUMMUSSY IS CRONENBERG CANON?!
Oh shit! This movie!! I'm so happy to see someone talk about it, let alone you!! I saw it with a friend in a completely empty theater and after that experience I so desperately wanted to get the word out about it. It's so good!!!
This is the way I like to interact with this kind of content. Reading about it or hearing about it from someone else lets me enjoy these concepts in a safe way. Thanks for making content like this, I can't wait to read your book! 💖
Love that you posted this video the same day I received my French 4K UHD steelbook copy in the mail. Amazing timing there, May. And yeah, I saw it in theaters back in June. Both David and his kid Brandon are churing out brilliant films left and right.
This movie was like of Repo! The Genetic Opera were like, good and done well with a good writer, a good cast, a good director and cinematographer and composer, etc.
May! You should talk about Dead Ringers. While I wouldn't say it was my favorite Cronenburg movie, I feel like its up there. I can get why its ingored cuz it doent have all the fun and gross out factor of his other movies, but the exploration of the psyche of twins always facinates me, as I did have my twin die at birth. I'm really curious about your thoughts on it and maybe you could get the catboy to watch it with you.
i saw this movie in theaters with my girlfriend and a friend and we all came out of it talking about politics and disability and sexuality, we had a great time! crimes of the future is so dense with ideas, i can't imagine not liking it at the very least on an intellectual level. it's one of these movies that just feels good to my brain!
6:27 love that the definition of bottom in this universe seems to be someone who grows a large amount of organs that Need to be removed, truly fantastic
You were spot on here. Despite all of the "disgusting" stuff in this movie, its never presented as horrific. Its so normalized to everyone in the film that they are unphased, even if to the audience it is horrific. Only odd thing to me at least to guess was that they built up that whole pageant thing and then its just dropped, like there was another act of this movie we didn't see (not saying chronenberg literally cut an act). Also fun fact this is the second film chronenberg directed titled crimes of the future and it is not a remake of it. they just share the title for some reason. I thought that was interesting.
I listened to this whole video and thought you were talking about some movie from the 80s and I did not realize until 19 min in that this came out 2022. Thinks made so much more sense when i thought that
even before lotr came out my mom had such a massive crush on viggo mortensen that her friend my her a photo collage that they framed and hung on her bedroom wall. it was there until we moved houses when i was 18. and now i'm really tempted to get her to watch this movie
I loved the film and love your discussion of it! Have you read Consumed by Cronenberg? If not, I think you'd really like it. Also has a lot of surgery-seggs stuff in it and some other delightful weirdness.
I never really worry about spoilers but you sold me on this one. Sounds like it was made for me so far- I'll be back to see the rest of the video LOL. Thanks as always.
Hello May, I am a cool transmasc and I'm a very big fan of yours :)) thank u for being an icon in the horror community, while being my fav on top of it, up there with Spookyrice and Wendigoon. I'm rly poor, but I wanna buy ur book soon. Anyway good luck or wtvr on your continued channel growth 🖤 I have an idea but it might be dumb! Maybe videos talking about disturbed artists and their freaky weird ass art! I think they end up painting rly vivid pictures of mental illness (no pun intended) and it might be worth a lil video or two :3 Anyway yeah keep being cool byeeeee -Charlie, he/they
Yaaas.. great movie that sticks with you.. lots of interesting layers in the plot even if some are half developed. Viggo is an undercover cop essentially and using his access to the surgical performance art community to keep tabs on "subversive elements' within. He is in contact with that ministry agent and feeding him information to root out the clandestine plastic eater group. The film also is set in a post climate collapse world I think its important to point out too. The planet is essentially sterile and 'plastic" is the new dominant biomass on the planet.. hence the struggle between the pre-collapse biological humans and the new post-collapse synthetic ones. Glad you liked it! I really did too.
I remember there was a callout to Kevin in one of the impossible movies lists and I was thinking how trippy it would be to get notified like that and now as a finn, I finally had that experience. Trippy!
Hello from... Finland. Just watched Cronenberg's The Dead Zone, which I enjoyed greatly, and I'm waiting to see this "comeback" of his very, very much. Happy to hear that it's good!
best channel ever but 3:20 that is not what kafkaesque means. the fly is sort of like kafka's "the metamorphisis", only on the surface. but kafka esque is beaurocracy and alienation in industrial society - like "brazil", or "the hudsucker proxy". only one of his books is about turning into a bug, and that is more a metaphor for being ostracized for not filling your role in society, being treated as subhuman, not a sci fi story.
I saw a few other reviewers talking about this movie and still not sure if I’d like it but I love hearing you talk about gross stuff, so here I am haha! Also random side note but I was surprised to see Cronenberg in the later seasons of Star Trek: Discovery and is actually pretty good in it. I didn’t recognize him at first but after seeing his name in the credits I was like “Oh, weird!”
'K, I gotta see this. But, if people no longer feel pain in this world, how is it that Mortenson's character feels pain from the new organs? Have you seen Repo! The Genetic Opera?
I didn't wana click on this thumbnail like not wanting to touch one of those pictures of a spider or something you would find in the school library as a kid
Apparently Viggo Mortensen got kicked by a horse and was in incredible pain the entire time and he couldn't stand up straight which is why his character is just constantly popping a squat
