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According to Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Hollywood’s attempts to show us a terrifying future often fall flat. For example, after decades of movies about killer robots trying to kill us, it turns out that the real robotic threat is artificial intelligence, which simply kills all our creativity. But one recent sci-fi film instantly became the scariest modern film in the genre because its depiction of the future is so specifically rooted in the collective anxieties of the present. That movie is by David Cronenberg Crimes of the futureand you can now stream all its bleak beauty on Hulu.
Crimes of the future (no relation to Cronenberg’s earlier film of the same name) follows a pair of male and female performers with a seriously twisted gimmick: in this world where many people have developed evolutionary quirks, the man has the ability to grow new organs. Accordingly, his partner regularly turns the surgery into a performance, allowing rapt audiences to see his organs removed live. Life is relatively good for these artists, but that all changes when they get caught up in a police effort to find and crack down on a group of rogue evolutionists.
Cast Crimes of the future is anchored by some big names including lord of the rings legend Viggo Mortensen as a man who can grow new organs. His partner is played by Léa Seydoux, a French actress who may be known to Western audiences from her appearances in films such as Dune: Part Two and Daniel Craig’s last two James Bond films, Ghost and There is no time to die. Kristen Stewart she also has a small part, and if anything, she’s even more infectious in this role than she was in the breathtakingly weird film Love Lies Bleeding.
Unfortunately for these actors and a superstar body horror director David Cronenberg, Crimes of the future he was crazy at the checkout. It only made $4.6 million against a $27 million budget. However, like most of Cronenberg’s work, this film has gained a growing cult following since its initial release, and it’s only a matter of time before it receives critical reappraisal from future audiences.
Meanwhile, however, not everyone who saw this groundbreaking film knew what to make of it. On Rotten tomatoes, Crimes of the future it has a critical rating of 80 percent, with critics stating that Cronenberg tackles some of his oldest themes in exciting new ways. Of course, the film only has a Popcornmeter audience rating of just 50 percent, with many who have seen it saying it has nothing to offer anyone who isn’t already a Cronenberg fan.
However, I simply have to disagree on this one. for one thing Crimes of the future is one of the most accessible films Cronenberg has ever made. Its plot is more linear than e.g. Scanners or Videodrome. While the film focuses on strange elective surgery as performance art, I found it to lack some of the more viscerally disturbing body horror elements of Cronenberg’s classics such as Rabid or Fly.
Plus, you don’t have to be a Cronenberg fan to enjoy what Crimes of the future they have to talk about the horrors of modern society. The subplot about humans evolving to consume plastic seems eerily relevant amid growing research into the vast amount of microplastics permeating our bodies. And the primary plot about surgical artists casts a grim and bitter light on our media habits. If millions of people enjoy watching the pain and suffering of others on TikTok and YouTubeis it really that hard to think that future audiences will enjoy literally tearing someone apart for entertainment?
Of course, you won’t be able to answer that question until you stream Crimes of the future on Hulu. Does it strike you as a muted, funhouse reflection of modern society or simply an exercise in Cronbergian excess? Of course, you won’t know until you stream Tomorrow’s Crimes today and make up your own mind.