Cronenberg himself took the stage at Caesar’s Palace and joked that it seemed like an appropriate place to “launch our attack on the world” with the film, which a Neon representative called Cronenberg’s “highly anticipated return to the horror genre” and an evolution of the director’s work that includes “key references” to his previous films. Cronenberg shared that he wrote the screenplay for “Crimes of the Future” more than 20 years ago, and that he originally wrote it for Toronto as he saw it in that time. The film was shot in Athens, since even Cronenberg doesn’t have access to time-travel, and he dropped a new trailer that gives more clues about the kind of visceral horrors we can expect.
The new trailer features moody lighting and a woman with a rainbow circle on her stomach, standing next to a futuristic operating table. We already know that “Crimes of the Future” is about body modification as a form of art, and Viggo Mortensen sums it up by saying “I don’t like what’s happening with the body, in particular what’s happening with my body, which is why I keep cutting it up.” Cronenberg has always been fascinated with body horror and how we try to control our lives through changing our forms, so “Crimes of the Future” sounds like it will be right in line with films like “Videodrome” and “eXistenZ.”
The new trailer shows Kristen Stewart’s character, an investigator from the National Organ Registry, examining a human body, then immediately shows Lea Seydoux’s character, who is Mortensen’s character’s partner, cutting open someone’s stomach and placing her mouth against the cut, highlighting the very real differences between their characters and the opposing forces in Cronenberg’s bizarre vision of the future. Where does the line between art, performance, and medicine begin and end? It looks like “Crimes of the Future” might also make a killer companion piece to Brandon Cronenberg’s “Antiviral,” which sees a future where celebrity meat and viruses are grown in labs for sale to the general public, and manufactured illnesses become a commodity. Those Cronenbergs sure love their body horror, huh?
Check out the film’s official synopsis below.
The film takes a deep dive into the not-so-distant future where humankind is learning to adapt to its synthetic surroundings. This evolution moves humans beyond their natural state and into a metamorphosis, altering their biological makeup. While some embrace the limitless potential of transhumanism, others attempt to police it. Saul Tenser is a beloved performance artist who has embraced “Accelerated Evolution Syndrome,” sprouting new and unexpected organs in his body. Along with his partner Caprice, Tenser has turned the removal of these organs into a spectacle for his loyal followers to marvel at in real time theatre. But with both the government and a strange subculture taking note, Tenser is forced to consider what would be his most shocking performance of all.
“Crimes of the Future” is currently scheduled for release on June 3, 2022.
