With
the exception of Wes Craven, no modern horror filmmaker has been more
embraced and celebrated by the mainstream than Canada's David Cronenberg.In 1988, he won
the award for Best Director from the Los Angeles Film
Critics Association, for one of his masterpieces, "Dead
Ringers."
After that film (which starred Jeremy Irons as disturbed twins) met both critical and
commercial success, Cronenberg left the horror genre for about a decade, opting
instead to direct warped art films such as "Crash" and "Naked Lunch."
But splatter film fans will always remember him as the man who made
excellent low-budget schlock such as "Rabid," "Shivers," "Scanners" and
"The Brood."
In addition to being unusually bloody and explicit, a typical Cronenberg
film is about human decay brought about by
a mis-application of science. In "The Brood," a
psychological therapy technique
produces murderous, monster children. In "Rabid," a new plastic surgery
technique spawns a rabies epidemic. In "Videodrome,"
James Woods plays a
TV executive who goes insane after viewing what appears to be a kind of
snuff TV show. In Cronenberg's most accessible film, "The Fly,"
a
scientist's DNA is merged with that of a fly's during a botched
teleportation experiment.
One of
Cronenberg's breakthrough movies was "Scanners,"
which actually
spawned a direct-to-video franchise. Cronenberg came up with the incredible idea of a psychic using his powers to will someone else's head to
explode. The scene that resulted made "Scanners" a box office hit.
His success at
B movies paved his way to the mainstream. He next directed
Stephen King's "The Dead Zone," starring Christopher
Walken.
Cronenberg's
films improved through the 1980s, and it's a tough call
picking what his best is. He made his two finest films, "The Fly"
and "Dead Ringers,"
in a row. After "Dead Ringers," however, his films became more surreal and
boring.
He drifted away from the horror elements his fans had grown to expect.
Cronenberg's movies remain interesting and bizarre, but many fans yearn
for the days when his movies featured rabid psychopaths and horror film
starlets such as Barbara Steele.
To see the
Telegraph's April 1999 interview with Cronenberg, click here.
The animated
"Scanners" gif on this page came from the best Cronenberg site on the Web:
http://www.netlink.co.uk/users/zappa/cronen.html
