R-Rated Dystopian Sci-Fi Horror On Hulu Gives Master Filmmaker Free Rein
The essential problem with most dystopian films is that their predictions for the future seem overly bleak and generally unrelatable for the average audience member. However, one horror veteran recently took a crack at the genre, and he created something that was so chilling because it perfectly mirrors our current societal decline, including parasocial relationships with bizarre performers. That film is David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, and you can stream it on Hulu if you want a dark glimpse of where our own history is slowly (and maddeningly) taking us.
Performative Surgery Is Not For The Faint Of Heart
Crimes of the Future follows two different performance artists who have an insane gimmick: because his body constantly produces new organs, they conduct performative surgeries where appreciative audiences can watch him getting torn apart and put back together again, but not before she has some naughty fun with his insides. These two lead strange lives in a time where “surgery is the new sex,” but nothing kills the mood quicker than a government plot to find some evolutionists with a radical agenda. When our two performers get caught up in this plot, their own future–and the future of the world around them–is thrown into sudden peril.
Aces In Their Places
The cast of Crimes of the Future is just as eclectic as Cronenberg himself. Viggo Mortensen is the man who constantly grows new organs and Léa Seydoux partners as an artist whose canvas is the depths of the human body and mind. Kristen Stewart shines in a supporting role as an investigator whose intense interest in Mortensen’s character may be as much about pleasure as it is business.
An Unlikely Critical And Commercial Success
Fortunately for Cronenberg (and, I would argue, the horror fandom at large), Crimes of the Future did well at the box office. Against a budget of $4.6 million, the film earned a worldwide box office of $27 million. This solidified that Cronenberg still has what it takes to put butts in seats, and if anything, the market for his unique brand of body horror is now bigger than ever.
In addition to being a commercial success, Crimes of the Future is a critical success as well. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a critical score of 80 percent. In general, critics praised the movie the director’s ability to return to some of his favorite themes with all the grisly, creep-tastic flair that Cronenberg is famous for.
A Dark, Cautionary Tale
As for me, while I have historically enjoyed David Cronenberg as a director, I won’t pretend to be an expert in his oeuvre. I’ll always hold any of his new films up to his remake of The Fly, asking myself whether the new movie can match that buzz-worthy barf fest of the ‘80s. In this case, Crimes of the Future arguably exceeds that Jeff Goldblum film because its themes are more relevant to our modern society, making it seem one part cautionary tale and one part dark mirror reflecting our daily own daily terrors.
Every horror fiend is scared of one thing more than others. I’m not sure if I’ve completely narrowed it down, but I find scary movies more frightening when they reveal the frayed tatters around modern culture and society. Cronenberg demonstrates in Crimes of the Future how just a few tugs at those tatters can reveal our yawning caver of bland nihilism, and I think about the terrors the director revealed on a now daily basis.
Stream Crimes Of The Future On Hulu
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Will you find Crimes of the Future as powerful and provocative as I did, or is this a dystopian film you’ll want to operate on (preferably with a hammer)? You won’t know until you watch this sci-fi horror classic on Hulu. By the time the credits roll, you may never think about the microplastics in our bodies the same way again.
