VauxhallVelcraux

Awesome movie. Cronenberg's obsession with flesh, with creating new orifices and exposing the interior of the body, isn't sexual as it is in Existenz, which surprised me given the possibilities of the physicality of telepathy. Seeing the head of what looks like Representative Henry Waxman of California explode is fucking nasty. Seeing Michael Ironside (who is basically a older, rougher, better Hugo Weaving) duel with...the other guy at the end was seriously horrific and tense. The art direction was great: shots of the company headquarters, a combination of the midcentury corporate office tower and the contemporary bioresearch campus, in winter dawn with a few exposed trees and othing else around, is vaguely unsettling. Corporatized science carries such a heavy unease quotient, and the image of bodily fluids contaminating an antiseptic room comes off as inevitable and appropriate. The gas station explosion scene was a little cheesy, and you have to suspend your disbelief over any discussion/illustration of computers pre-1995 (with the exception of Blade Runner), but otherwise this was about as good as horror gets. Even if the audio didn't always align with the video and the Netflix sleeve gave an important detail away.

****2/3