David Cronenberg
250 connections found
Filmography
The Fly 1986 
The Brood 1979 
eXistenZ 1999 
Videodrome 1983 
A Dangerous Method 2011 
Dead Ringers 1988 
Crash 1996 
Naked Lunch 1991 
Eastern Promises 2007 
Cosmopolis 2012 
Maps to the Stars 2014 
A History of Violence 2005 
The Dead Zone 1983 
Crimes of the Future 2022 
Spider 2002 
Scanners 1981 
Shivers 1975 
Rabid 1977 
Fast Company 1979 
Crimes of the Future 1970 
Camera 2000 
Stereo (Tile 3B of a CAEE Educational Mosaic) 1969 
M. Butterfly 1993 
The Shrouds 2025 View:
Connections, in both directions
Splice (2010)
Directed by Vincenzo Natali
influenced by The Fly (1986), Videodrome (1983), Shivers (1975), The Brood (1979), Scanners (1981), eXistenZ (1999)
Themes Plot Visuals
If anything, the film is the ne plus ultra of chicks-with-dicks body horror, but it doesn't hold a candle to Scanners or eXistenz.
The director clearly knows his horror movies, too, because while “Splice” most closely resembles Shelley's classic novel, there are also hints of “The Fly,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” and yes, even “Species.”
Like the vastly superior The Fly , it uses gore sparingly; delivering shocks to the audience is a secondary consideration.
Throughout, parallels from James Whale’s 1931 film “Frankenstein” to David Cronenberg’s 1986 film “The Fly” to Roger Donaldson’s 1995 movie “Species” abound, but Natali goes a step farther in that he doesn’t make his leads at all likable, which might be an additional cautionary comment on all that occurs in his movie.
He throws in elements of David Cronenbergs The Fly, too, but ultimately Splice owes as much to David Lynchs parenthood-inspired Eraserhead as any other film.
Brody and Polley establish early on the feasible arrogance and naïveté of their hipster scientist couple, and itâs curious to see their relationship bow to this sudden onset of parental responsibilities â a little less Species or Cronenbergâs The Fly, and a little more Revolutionary Road, if you will.
District 9 (2009)
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
influenced by The Fly (1986), The Dead Zone (1983)
Visuals Themes Plot
The creatures combine insect and crustacean anatomy and at times recall David Cronenberg’s DNA splicing of fly and human from “The Fly” to deliver some genuinely uncomfortable scenes.
Physical transformation scenes reminiscent of Cronenberg’s The Fly will freak out some viewers — and thrill others.
It’s not that there isn’t a clear weight of genre history behind Neill Blomkamp’s astonishing feature debut: District 9 nods to everything from Cronenberg’s The Fly to Verhoeven’s Robocop, from Raimi’s Evil Dead II to Scott’s Black Hawk Down.
While built on elements from Alien Nation , Enemy Mine , and even David Cronenberg’s The Fly , District 9 transcends its inspirations by focusing on story, character, and the very human disregard for others until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.
The film recalls the likes of The Day the Earth Stood Still, David Cronenberg's The Fly , and Independence Day .
Soon his body is undergoing a transformation similar to the one in David Cronenberg’s The Fly, and he becomes a fugitive, hunted down by both thuggish government mercenaries and a group of Nigerian gangsters who want to eat him for animistic religious purposes.
The re-working of the 1958 horror classic The Fly gave him fertile ground to explore this theme.
If any film is deserving of the term "re-imagination" as opposed to "remake," it's David Cronenberg's 1986 The Fly.
Cronenberg's new film, "The Fly" (citywide Friday), plunges deeper into the forbidding realm of genetic dysfunction with genuinely unsettling results.
While 1958’s Universal horror film “The Fly” was in fact a truly creepy and bleak horror drama with little to no story elements that signaled a clear cut resolution for anyone that would ensure a life of sanity, it almost seemed like a film that held unrealized potential.
The other tribute to Cronenberg is a blatant homage to the famous “head explosion” from Scanners.
Trank name-dropped David Cronenberg and his body horror shtick as an influence, but that winds up manifesting itself as mere references: our heroes get plastered before teleporting themselves and come back spliced with other things; Doom’s assault on soldiers sports hard-PG-13 versions of “Scanners”’s bloody head implosions.
Those thoughts later gelled with Trank’s own from earlier this year, especially after he cited the work of David Cronenberg as an influence — specifically, 1981’s Scanners and 1986’s The Fly .
Kill Your Darlings (2013)
Directed by John Krokidas
influenced by Naked Lunch (1991)
Themes Characters
The Beat poets have inspired writers and filmmakers for many decades now, resulting in innumerable documentaries and movies, ranging from the amazing Naked Lunch to the terrible On the Road .
Ben Foster channels Burroughs in a delightfully dry rendering as the future “Naked Lunch” author finds himself mildly amused by talk of a “literary revolution.”
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026)
Directed by Jane Schoenbrun
influenced by Videodrome (1983)
Themes Visuals
John Carpenter’s In Mouth of Madness seems like a probable touchstone, alongside other horror landmarks such as Body Double and Videodrome.
…with touches of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983) and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) cleverly deployed along the way.
Like “Videodrome,” their movies treat media as something that doesn’t stay safely on the other side of the screen.
…writer-director Jane Schoenbrun wears their influences on their sleeve, from Friday The 13th to Videodrome via Mulholland Drive and Sunset Boulevard…
Like in "Videodrome," there's a scene where someone inserts a VHS cassette into a gooey, biological aperture.
Aside from the real-life horror classics already mentioned, there are also nods to A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Shining, Videodrome, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit.
Titane (2021)
Directed by Julia Ducournau
influenced by Crash (1996), Rabid (1977), The Fly (1986), The Brood (1979)
Themes
Ducournau openly plays with themes of gender identity, sexuality, queerness, violence and unconditional love, barreling down the highway like David Cronenberg's "Crash" with its pedal to the metal.
“Titane” is determined to make David Cronenberg’s “Crash,” its biggest inspiration, look tame.
With its mix of extreme violence and auto-eroticism (so to speak), Titane will inevitably draw comparisons to David Cronenberg’s Crash.
It’s a daringly queer and undoubtedly controversial ride, resulting in a most uncommon monster movie — a cross between David Cronenberg’s “Crash” and the uterine horrors of Takashi Miike’s “Gozu,” perhaps — where the main character hardly ever speaks and what Ducournau is trying to say is wildly open to interpretation.
In J.G. Ballard’s seminal 1973 cult novel Crash, infamously adapted in 1996 by David Cronenberg, the author rationalizes the morbid predilections of a character collecting grisly curios as items which “formed the key to a new sexuality, born from perverse technology.”
Despite a prologue that links a young girl’s traumatic auto accident to sexual compulsion, however, it should be said up front that Titane is not ultimately concerned with fetishistic obsession — which means that it only superficially resembles David Cronenberg’s Crash (1996).
Possessor (2020)
Directed by Brandon Cronenberg
influenced by Dead Ringers (1988), Videodrome (1983), Scanners (1981), eXistenZ (1999), The Fly (1986), Maps to the Stars (2014)
Plot Visuals Themes
Possessor takes elements of eXistenZ and, to a lesser degree, Dead Ringers , to create a tale of identity theft and personal discovery with a twist.
The son of the body-horror maestro behind such cine-nightmares as “Scanners” and “Dead Ringers,” director Brandon Cronenberg took a tentative step in the same squirm-inducing direction with his 2012 debut, “Antiviral.”
As with her previous assignments, Vos works remotely, in headgear resembling the gynecological equipment featured in “Dead Ringers.”
Cronenberg has a keen eye for sculptural design and has made a somewhat derivative effort, combining elements from his father’s films “Videodrome,” a 1983 visionary landmark about a pirate porn station that turns people into assassins, and “Dead Ringers,” a darkly surreal 1988 tale of twins who inhabit each other’s psyches.
But Brandon Cronenberg certainly knew what he was getting into with his second feature Possessor , a psychological horror film involving body-penetrating mind-control devices, deliberately provocative gore and scientific tools that, like those horrible specula and pincers in Dead Ringers , enable violence without sacrificing a sheen of haute-design luxury.
Following up on his Fantastic Fest 2012 debut Antiviral, Possessor (Uncut) seamlessly blends the unsettling body-horror that permeated the elder Cronenberg’s early-to-mid-career work in such genre-bending classics as Dead Ringers, Videodrome, and the The Fly with the trippy technophobics of eXistenZ while carving out his own borderline psychedelic niche in an already crowded and newly resurgent genre – thanks in large part to our current cultural chaos – of the hybrid highbrow sci-fi/horrorshow.
You can feel the Cronenbergian inspirations that flow through Meakins’ debut, in the body horror and themes on display, recalling Videodrome and ExistenZ .
Anyone remember The Lawnmower Man (1992) or Videodrome (1983)?
Un’idea che era stata già esplorata da classici come Videodrome di David Cronenberg (insuperato, cupo apologo sul potere del mezzo televisivo) o, nei decenni successivi, dai giapponesi Ring di Hideo Nakata e Kairo di Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Goodnight Mommy (2015)
Directed by Severin Fiala
influenced by Dead Ringers (1988)
Themes Characters
A little “Eyes Without A Face,” a little “Dead Ringers,” with some of the bracing provocation of “Dogtooth,” “Goodnight Mommy” is also reminiscent of the wicked games of their countryman Michael Haneke.
Promotional materials claim that "Goodnight Mommy" is on par with "The Shining" and "Dead Ringers."
Take a hike, Jeremy Irons’ scary gynaecologist brothers in Dead Ringers.
From Margot Kidder and her formerly conjoined sibling in Brian De Palma's early Sisters through a demented Jeremy Irons times two in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, there's a rich history of horror exploiting the potential for intuitive communication, conspiracy, loyalty, betrayal and creepiness in twins.
The Schwarzes give such symbiotic performances that it’s easy to imagine the characters being played by the same actor, like the aloof dual roles of Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers or Armie Hammer in The Social Network.
John Dies at the End (2013)
Directed by Don Coscarelli
influenced by Naked Lunch (1991), Scanners (1981)
Themes Visuals
Like “Naked Lunch” or “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” before it, “John Dies At The End” is a weird, wild, and wonderfully unique film that defies just about every convention that critics – and traditional media – throw at it.
If you liked “Donnie Darko” and David Cronenberg’s “Naked Lunch”; if you enjoyed “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and Michael Haneke’s early films – and the underappreciated third film of George A. Romero’s zombie trilogy, and Zack Snyder’s “Sucker Punch” – well, then I think you’re good with “John Dies at the End.” (You might have to admit that you kind of liked Guy Ritchie’s idiotic work of Madonna-informed mysticism, “Revolver,” and you certainly have to be excited about Giamatti’s upcoming role in Ari Folman’s “The Congress,” adapted from a novel by Polish sci-fi cult hero Stanislaw Lem. ) Like I say, self-limiting.
The effects tip this off as an attempt to make a David Cronenberg (“Scanners,” “Naked Lunch”) comedy, with a few “Fright Night” touches.
John Dies at the End is joyously heterodox in its method, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink mélange of sci-fi, black comedy, and action, with disquieting body-horror sight gags that at times recall David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch .
In case you missed it , I'm a big fan of John Dies at the End, mainly because it's not a movie you can really say is like anything else; I have made comparisons to both Naked Lunch (drugs 'n demons) and Buckaroo Banzai (insanity from alternate dimensions hunted by celebrity superstars) a few times here, but it's a lot more satisfying as a story than either.
The effects tip this off as an attempt to make a David Cronenberg (“Scanners,” “Naked Lunch”) comedy, with a few “Fright Night” touches.
Rubber (2010)
Directed by Quentin Dupieux
influenced by Scanners (1981), A History of Violence (2005)
Visuals Plot Themes
It's also a horror film, a critique of cinema past and present, an absurdist satire of traditional film tropes, an homage to David Cronenberg's Scanners, a comeback for Eighties icon Hauser, and a feature-length avant garde film unlike any other.
Initially tentative, the tire discovers it has telekinetic powers and soon works its way up the food chain, from rabbits and crows to clueless humans whose heads, a la Cronenberg’s “Scanners,” explode like watermelons.
With just a few jerks of its worn tread, Robert discovers that it can make nearby objects explode, suggesting what might have happened if David Cronenberg’s Scanners had been filmed at Canadian Tire.
So it blows up animals and people’s heads, like David Cronenberg did in “Scanners” 30 years ago.
Part of the irony is that the Cronenberg flicks it seems to most want to attack ( A History of Violence , in particular) have already taken on the type of self-reflection that Rubber attempts with none of its open contempt and self-satisfaction.
Playing both the infamously savage Cockney crime lords in a dazzling feat of thespian self-splicing to rival Jeremy Irons in “Dead Ringers,” Hardy’s inspired twin turn elevates and complicates the otherwise straightforward terrain of “Legend,” in which U.S. writer-helmer Brian Helgeland gives London’s East End gangland a slightly touristic candy-coating of Swinging ’60s glamor.
Helgeland could have learned a great deal from the blocking of dual Jeremy Irons accomplished by David Cronenberg in “Dead Ringers,” which made the viewer feel as if there were really two different people in the frame.
Identical-twin performances have been attempted before (from Jeremy Irons's creep gynecologists in Dead Ringers to the forcibly wacky hijinks of Michael Keaton's many selves in Multiplicity ), but never has the cinematic trick been so convincing as it is here.
If the result doesn’t equal Jeremy Irons’ feat in “Dead Ringers,” that’s because the brothers in David Cronenberg’s film were far more subtle creations than the real-life gangsters Hardy portrays, who are both more easily differentiated—one wears glasses and the other doesn’t—and, each in his own way, far more theatrically extravagant.
Having originally offered Hardy the role of Reggie, Helgeland was persuaded to let the actor wrestle with Ron as well (both on and off screen), a dual role to which he brings the same commitment – physical, intellectual, emotional – as Jeremy Irons essaying both Mantle brothers in David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers .
As would be expected from Hardy, it’s a bravura dual performance, putting him in that rarified category of actors (including Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers and Nicolas Cage in Adaptation.) who have conquered the challenge of playing twins in a way that doesn’t feel forced or gimmicky.
But the unmodulated and overweening bile is reminiscent of the severely negative films about Hollywood from the 1970s, such as Myra Breckinridge, Alex in Wonderland and The Day of the Locust, and it’s unlikely this one will have any better a box-office fate.
An affectionate homage to gooey, off-kilter horror movies (see: all things Troma, David Cronenberg's Shivers, Fred Dekker, The Blob, and so much more), this movie has one unexpected thing: A heart.
Gunn's goofy tale mashes together such classics as "The Night of the Living Dead" with "I Married a Monster from Outer Space," "The Blob" and David Cronenberg's "Shivers."
The closest it comes is a scene where a parasitic slug invades a bathtub — and that’s a riff on a well-known scene from David Cronenberg’s Shivers (aka They Came from Within).
But Gunn doesn't simply draw from "Invaders From Mars," David Cronenberg's "Shivers," "Alien," the George Romero zombie flicks, or the tawdry Troma horror movies just to demonstrate that he's seen the same horror pictures that we have (as the makers of the "Scary Movie" franchise do).
With additional nods to directors like David Cronenberg (a local shop is named after "Videodrome" antihero Max Renn) and Frank Henenlotter ("Basket Case"), "Slither" is a movie only true horror buffs can love.
The script, by Aubrey Lam, bears a marked resemblance to David Cronenberg's A History of Violence and a score of old westerns beside—the retired bad man rustled out of retirement by figures from the past—while the fleet spirit of the film evokes happier days of Hong Kong cinema.
The plot and fight scenes conjure everything from “Sweeney Todd” to “A History of Violence.”
Dragon bears similarities to A History of Violence, the film that David Cronenberg made from the John Harris graphic novel.
David Cronenberg's A History Of Violence heads east in this period set Chinese martial arts flick about a family man (Donnie Yen) whose dark past comes to light after he reluctantly foils a hold-up.
Blending old-school kung-fu elements with a touch of noir and a plot that recalls A History Of Violence , Peter Chan’s Dragon is a drama about redemption masquerading as a martial-arts movie.
The intention of director Peter Chan ( The Warlords ) apparently is to compensate for mundane plotting (which bears an unfavorable resemblance to A History of Violence ) with a barrage of well-choreographed action sequences.
Unforgiven (1992)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
influenced A History of Violence (2005)
Characters Themes
He could be Cary Grant in "North by Northwest," an innocent man forced by mistaken identity into a life-or-death struggle, or maybe he's Clint Eastwood in "Unforgiven," a reformed gunslinger who has retreated to the quiet life but finds he hasn't washed all the blood off his hands.
There are strong parallels between A History of Violence and Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning Unforgiven, in that both films examine once viciously violent men who have long since reformed, and have become domesticated family men, but who are eventually drawn back into their violent ways of old.
By degrees he insinuates the idea of violence as an inescapable destiny, redolent of Clint Eastwood's reformed killer in Unforgiven finding himself pulled back into the old ways.
Working from a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, screenwriter Josh Olson creates a modern-day parallel to all those classic Westerns (from "The Gunfighter" to "Shane" to "The Shootist" to "Unforgiven") in which world-weary gunslingers naively think they can hang up their six-shooters -- at least until, inevitably, their violent pasts catch up with them.
The modern apex is the vigilante Western Unforgiven, in which a return to bloodshed costs the hero his soul—but the higher price (for him and at the box office) would have been leaving his buddy unavenged.
Suddenly, what started as a riff on A History Of Violence begins to look more like Cape Fear—and from there, the twists in tone and narrative agenda only get wilder.
(In this, “Cold in July” shares some connective tissue with David Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence,” in which a similar act of heroism unleashed the dark side of an unassuming family man.)
Finally arriving on screens after several years in the making, his fourth feature Cold in July is a gripping and stylish western noir that blends the small-town malevolence of David Cronenberg's A History of Violence with a sinewy B-movie efficiency that recalls other recent potboiler adaptations like The Lincoln Lawyer .
But instead of dwelling on the moral consequences of an ordinary joe taking a stand (a la A History Of Violence), the film takes a sharp left-turn into psycho-thriller territory when the intruder’s father (Sam Shepard) comes a-calling.
In some ways, the film forms a flipside companion piece to David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, another tale of a quiet man drawn into a world of comic-strip brutality, littered with broken-backed narrative left turns that wrong-foot the audience, leaving them wondering how much of this is but a bloody, fevered dream.
The mood at this point is reminiscent of A History of Violence , David Cronenberg 's excellent drama about a small-town family forced to reckon with the traumatic things that, in movies, seem to have no effect on people.
As the movie opens, Catherine strokes the sleek curves of airplane fuselages, echoing the camera's loving pans à la Kenneth Anger's Kustom Kar Kommandos, as her flight instructor services her from off screen.
Only God Forgives (2013)
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
influenced by Videodrome (1983)
Plot Themes
(Julian’s symbolic return to the womb, to put it gently, apes the key gesture of David Cronenberg’s “Videodrome.”)
The myriad of metaphors, particularly those featuring various forms of 'penetration' that echo David Cronenberg's Videodrome, favour a reading of the movie as a modern-day retelling of the Oedipus Rex tragedy.