When it comes to actually terrifying the audience, David Cronenberg excels at using the kind of obscene, repulsive imagery that leaves you feeling uneasy and stays in your head for a long time after the credits have rolled. With the release of his most recent film, “Crimes of the Future,” which represents something of a return to form for the king of body horror, Cronenberg is back in the public eye after an eight-year sabbatical. We’ve put together a list of spine-tingling movies that any fan of David Cronenberg will enjoy to mark the occasion.
1. Titane (2021)
Director- Julia Ducournau
Alexia has been carrying a high-purity, medical-grade titanium alloy implant firmly fastened to her skull. Ever since that terrible vehicle accident that came dangerously close to taking her life. However, almost ten years later, after undergoing major cranioplasty, Alexia has grown fetishistic in her fascination with automobiles. Rather than being turned off by them. She is now a silently violent go-go dancer at underground auto events. While the city is being terrorised by a string of gruesome murders, the grieving fire chief Vincent suddenly reunites with his long-lost son Adrien. He has been gone for ten years. But people evolve over time.
2. Don’t Look Now (1973)
Director- Nicolas Roeg
John Baxter and his wife Laura move to chilly, wintry Venice in Italy because they can’t deal with their daughter’s sudden death. Also, he nagging feeling of unjustifiable guilt. While Laura turns to medication, John uses his work, the renovation of an old chapel. In order to channel his repressed anguish there. Against the backdrop of an endless string of horrific murders in the city’s meandering canals. In the meantime, a terrifying person dressed in a shiny red anorak terrorises the town’s dark back alleys. Then, a chance contact with the mysterious twins, the blind psychic Heather and Wendy, her eccentric sister. It sets off eerie images of the loved deceased.
3. Hour Of The Wolf (1968)
Director- Ingmar Bergman
To spend the summer, Johan Borg and his expectant wife Alma travel to a distant island. Johan, an artist by trade, has recently been uninspired and restless. Johan keeps his diary in a black bag under the bed. One day an elderly woman comes up to Alma and asks her to read it. Alma grows more and more terrified as Johan’s mental condition worsens. Since he has been unable to fall asleep at night for some time, Johann tells Alma about happenings in his youth. Also, finally about Veronica, the lady he shared a home with for five years. Johan eventually disappears into the woods and is never seen again. What was real and what was imagined is unclear, even to Alma.
4. La Haine (1995)
Director- Mathieu Kassovitz
Following a bloody protest against police violence that was precipitated by the hospitalisation of the seriously injured, Abdel Ichacha, three young friends, Vinz, Hubert, and Sa’d, rejoin the next morning in their neighbourhood on one of the poor, banlieues outside of Paris. Vinz increasingly appears to be a ticking time bomb as he becomes more and more blinded with wrath and the irrational need to settle the score with his stainless-steel, snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Model 629 pistol. He is passing the time, meandering through the nameless streets of the city, waiting to blow, all the while, for the course of twenty-four hours. Murder, however, is never the answer since it only leads to more violence and hatred.
5. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Director- Jack Arnold
Scott Carey is out at sea with his wife when their boat drifts through an odd mist that leaves a metallic film on his body. At the time, he doesn’t give it much thought, but after a few weeks, he starts to realise that he is losing weight. He is getting shorter, which is also confirmed by a trip to the doctor. Doctors determine that a genetic abnormality has resulted from his exposure to insecticides and then what must have been a radioactive mist as he continues to shrink. They succeed in momentarily halting his turnaround. He eventually gets so small that he is in danger of dying when he comes into contact with the family cat and then a spider.
6. The Fly (1986)
Director- David Cronenberg
A research scientist working for Bartok Sciences named Seth Brundle created “Telepods”—two-matter transmission pods that can transport any thing through space from one “Telepod” to the other. But it isn’t until Seth meets journalist Veronica Quaife that Seth is motivated to change the system and succeeds in teleporting. However, when Seth teleports himself while doing a matter transmission experiment, everything goes tragically wrong. He is unaware that his genes have been combined with those of a house fly that was also imprisoned in the telepod. Now that Seth’s DNA have been altered, he is gradually changing into the frightening mutant creature known as “Brundlefly,” and he is engaged in a bloody struggle.
7. Alien (1979)
Director- Ridley Scott
Mother, a cutting-edge AI supercomputer onboard the USCSS Nostromo, a commercial towing vessel, receives a potential distress call from the nearby desolate, hostile moon Acheron and awakens the crew of seven from cryosleep. This occurs in the depths of the frigid, endless space. As they descend to the dark celestial planet known as LV-426 to examine the odd communication, Captain Arthur Dallas, Executive Officer Thomas Kane, and Navigator Joan Lambert find a downed but largely intact extraterrestrial spacecraft and its peculiar cargo. Regardless, something else has entered the Nostromo, and as a result, its silent, dark halls will never again be secure.
8. Woman In The Dunes (1964)
Director- Hiroshi Teshigahara
The local villagers convince entomologist Niki Jumpei to stay the night in a house at the foot of the sandpit after she misses the final bus home while searching for insects in a series of sand dunes. Unidentified young widow resides there by herself and is compelled by the locals to dig the sand that they sell to other cities for development. While being forced to scrape sand with the widow, Niki plans his escape while getting used to his captivity.
9. Raw (2016)
Director- Julia Ducournau
As a first-year student at the prestigious Saint-Exupéry Veterinary School, Justine brings her strict vegetarian upbringing with her. When Justine leaves the family home, she enters a strange new world of bizarre school customs and brutal initiation exams. Soon, she will have to reconsider her steadfast herbivorous convictions. As Justine delves more and more deeply into a shadowy realm of undiscovered animalistic impulses, a rare and equally macabre need for flesh will change her significantly.
10. Duel (TV Movie, 1971)
Director- Steven Spielberg
Typical Mr. On his route to a business engagement, regular salesman David Mann crosses a rusted, dilapidated 18-wheeler gasoline transport vehicle as he travels through remote California desert highways. By looking at how the truck is maintained, it is clear that the driver has low self-esteem. The truck driver recognises David’s car when he sees it because it’s the same make and model as one from his past, when he was the victim of some awful tragedy. This isn’t a case of road rage; rather, the mental break was triggered by seeing the car. The truck driver chooses to slay the automobile as a way of making amends. Just a helpless innocent victim, Mr. Mann.
