Shivers (1975)

Writer: David Cronenberg

Producer: Ivan Reitman

Cast: Joe Silver, Ronald Mlodzik, Susan Petrie, Lynn Lowry, Alan Migicovsky

Box office: n/a

Country: Canada

When a scientist implants a parasite into his sexually active girlfriend, events spin rapidly out of control. The supposedly benign parasite proves to be malignant, creating a virulent venereal disease. Although the scientist kills himself and his mistress, it’s too late. The disease has spread throughout their upwardly mobile high-rise building, turning all the dwellers into crazed maniacs. As Shivers concludes, the demented band of hedonists is preparing to descend on Montreal. Controversy greeted Cronenberg when the cover of Saturday Night magazine proclaimed that Shivers was ‘the most perverse, disgusting film’ that their critic, Robert Fulford, had ever seen.

Rabid (1977)

Writer: David Cronenberg

Producer: John Dunning

Cast: Marilyn Chambers, Joe Silver, Patricia Gage, Howard Ryshpan

Box office: $7 million

Country: Canada

A brilliant surgeon wreaks disaster when his life-saving experimental technique transforms Rose, a beautiful woman who has been seriously injured in a motorcycle accident, into a host for a blood-sucking creature that resides in her armpit. Her victims develop a form of rabies that forces them to attack others before they succumb to the disease. When the epidemic hits Montreal, martial law is declared, in a bizarre echo of that city’s October Crisis. Rose ends up dead, collected as garbage, in Rabid’s anarchical conclusion. Although Cronenberg wanted Sissy Spacek as Rose, he did garner a strong performance from notorious porn star Marilyn Chambers.

Fast Company (1979)

Writers: Phil Savath, Courtney Smith, David Cronenberg

Producers: Michael Lebowitz, Peter O’Brian, Courtney Smith

Cast: William Smith, Claudia Jennings, Nicholas Campbell, John Saxon, Cedric Smith

Box office: n/a

Country: Canada

Ace drag racer Lonnie ‘Lucky Man’ Johnson (William Smith) is humiliated when his sleazy manager Phil Adamson (Saxon) of the Fastco company forces him to race indie Gary Black (Cedric Smith) in a ‘funny car’ class. Johnson and his girlfriend Sammy (Jennings) constantly fight with Adamson, as they believe in the integrity of the road and racing. After Lonnie realizes too late that Adamson has given Black a defective car to drive in a fateful race, a fiery conclusion is inevitable in this homage to B-movies. ‘What I like most about the movie came out of my appreciation and understanding of race cars,’ said Cronenberg.

The Brood (1979)

Writer: David Cronenberg

Producer: Claude Héroux

Cast: Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle,

Nuala Fitzgerald

Box office: n/a

Country: Canada

When Nola (Eggar) submits herself to the care of the intense and secretive psychiatrist Dr. Raglan (Reed), horrifying incidents begin to occur. Raglan’s belief in having his patients act out their pain coincides in fearful ways with Nola’s anger over the abuse she suffered as a child. Nola’s parents are murdered and her daughter Candice returns home from a visit covered in bruises, causing her ex-husband Frank (Hindle) to confront the nightmarish ‘brood’ that has, terrifyingly, come to life. This intensely personal film about divorce is ‘my version of Kramer vs. Kramer… It got to the real nightmare… of the situation,’ Cronenberg said.

Scanners (1981)

Writer: David Cronenberg

Producer: Claude Héroux

Cast: Jennifer O’Neill, Stephen Lack, Lawrence Z. Dane, Patrick McGoohan, Michael Ironside

North American box office: US$14 million

Country: Canada

Vale (Lack), a lowly derelict, is recruited by ComSec, a mysterious agency headed by Dr. Ruth (McGoohan), to fight Revok (Ironside). Vale and Revok are ‘scanners,’ powerful telepaths that can control people’s thoughts. In one astonishing scene, Revok causes a head to explode. With the help of Obrist (O’Neill), Vale hunts down Revok through other scanners. Finally, Vale realizes that Revok is running Biocarbon Amalgamate, ComSec’s biggest rival. Even after he discovers that his bond with Revok is more than telepathic, Vale remains committed to a fateful confrontation between the two. Cronenberg has called the film a breakthrough for him.

Videodrome (1982)

Writer: David Cronenberg

Producer: Claude Héroux

Cast: James Woods, Sonja Smits, Deborah Harry, Jack Creley

North American box office: US$2.1 million

Countries: Canada/U.S.A.

Unscrupulous Toronto cable TV operator Max Renn (Woods) discovers a twisted U.S.-based channel broadcasting a sadomasochistic show called Videodrome. While investigating the underground station, he becomes involved with Nicki (Harry), who is somehow involved with it, and later crosses paths with Bianca O’Blivion (a young Smits), the daughter of a mysterious media expert who prophesies on television. Before he realizes it, Max begins to lose his identity, hallucinating increasingly violent erotic images. Finally, he decides to embrace the ‘new flesh,’ and shoots himself. ‘I wanted to posit the possibility that a man exposed to violent imagery would begin to hallucinate… What would it lead to?’ Cronenberg noted.

The Dead Zone (1983)

Writer: Jeffrey Boam, adapting a novel by Stephen King

Producer: Debra Hill

Cast: Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams,

Tom Skerritt, Herbert Lom, Martin Sheen

North American box office: US$21 million

Country: U.S.A.

Cronenberg got his shot at a Stephen King adaptation with this thriller for exec producer Dino De Laurentiis. When Johnny Smith (Walken) wakes up from a five-year coma caused by a near-fatal car crash, he discovers that his fiancée Sarah (Adams) has married, his limbs have atrophied and, most disconcertingly, he has become a clairvoyant with the ability to see the most intimate details of peoples’ lives – past, present and future. After helping to solve the case of a serial killer, he hides away, but when he encounters a presidential candidate (Sheen) whose election he foresees causing nuclear war, Johnny decides to act.

The Fly (1986)

Writer: David Cronenberg, from a story by George Langelaan and Charles Edward Pogue

Producer: Stuart Cornfeld

Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz, Les Carlson, George Chuvalo

North American box office: US$40 million

Country: U.S.A.

Cronenberg’s commercial high point, made for Mel Brooks’ Brooksfilms, has Seth Brundle (Goldblum), a brilliant, unworldly scientist, falling in love with journalist Veronica Quaife (Davis). In a bid to impress her, Seth shows off his invention, a still-experimental teleportation machine. They embark on a passionate affair that enrages Stathis Borans (Getz), Veronica’s former lover. Deceived by Borans, Seth tries out the teleporter himself along with and an unforeseen guest – a housefly. The two gradually merge, causing Seth to turn into an immense human fly. When his transformation is complete, Seth truly provokes the film’s memorable tagline: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Dead Ringers (1988)

Writers: David Cronenberg, Norman Snider

Producers: Marc Boyman, David Cronenberg

Cast: Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold

North American box office: US$8 million

Countries: Canada/U.S.A.

Twin gynecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle (both played by Irons) are at the top of their profession when they meet the acclaimed film actress Claire Niveau (Bujold). The elegant, nearly sociopath Elliot seduces her, and then substitutes his quiet, diffident twin Beverly, so he can sleep with her, too. When she discovers the truth, Claire denounces them, which doesn’t bother Elliot, until he realizes that Beverly has fallen in love with her. Falling into a vertiginous decline, Beverly binges on drugs and starts to experiment with bizarre and lethal surgical equipment. When Elliot decides to ‘cure’ his brother, a tragic denouement is inevitable.

Naked Lunch (1991)

Writer: David Cronenberg, adapting the novel by William S. Burroughs

Producer: Jeremy Thomas

Cast: Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, Roy Scheider North American box office: US$2.6 million

Countries: Canada/U.K.

Less an adaptation than homage to William Burroughs’ acclaimed Beat novel, Cronenberg’s film is a hallucinatory evocation of junkies, Beats, writers, homosexuals and the North African underground. Bill Lee (Weller) is a bug exterminator who finds his potent supply of bug powder is being injected by his addicted wife Joan (Davis). The substitute, Black Meat, proves far worse, when a drugged-out Bill accidentally kills Joan while performing their ‘William Tell’ routine. Sent to Tangiers, Bill meets writers Tom and Joan Frost (Holm and Davis, again). Through them and their crowd his identity shifts after entering Interzone, a bizarre region populated by talking beetles and sentient typewriters.

M. Butterfly (1993)

Writer: David Henry Hwang, based on his stage production

Producer: Gabriella Martinelli

Cast: Jeremy Irons, John Lone, Barbara Sukowa, Ian Richardson

North American box office: US$1.5 million

Country: U.S.A.

Generally regarded as a commercial and critical disappointment, this film still has its admirers. During China’s harshly anti-elitist Cultural Revolution, French bureaucrat René Gallimard (Irons) meets glamorous opera diva Song Liling (Lone). Gallimard finds himself

intrigued by Liling after the singer’s breathtaking performance of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, and the two embark on a passionate relationship, despite Gallimard’s misunderstanding of his diva’s sexual nature. Although the scandalous events actually took place, Cronenberg’s ‘M. Butterfly does not take hold the way the stage play did. Perhaps the camera is too cruelly realistic, reminding us at wrong moments that Song Liling seems to have 5 o’clock shadow,’ writes Roger Ebert.

Crash (1996)

Writer: David Cronenberg, based on the novel by JG Ballard

Producer: David Cronenberg

Cast: James Spader, Holly Hunter, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette, Elias Koteas

North American box office: US$2 million

Country: Canada

This Cannes award-winning adaptation of JG Ballard’s cult novel provoked fierce debate, particularly in England, where famed critic Alexander Walker’s negative review was headlined ‘Beyond the bounds of depravity’ and the film was initially banned in London’s West End. James Spader plays film producer James Ballard, whose affectionless marriage to Catherine (Unger) is challenged by Helen (Hunter). Ballard is seduced into joining Helen’s strange group of friends – car-crash fetishists led by Vaughan (Koteas). When Catherine embarks on an affair with Vaughan, the Ballards become converts to the doomed eroticism of the automobile. ‘It’s perversely magnificent,’ writes Steve Gravestock, programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival.

eXistenZ (1999)

Writer: David Cronenberg

Producers: David Cronenberg, Andras Hamori, Robert Lantos

Cast: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Ian Holm, Don McKellar, Willem Dafoe

North American box office: US$2.9 million

Countries: Canada/U.K.

When an assassin attempts to shoot genius game designer Allegra Geller (Leigh), she flees with eXistenZ, her latest invention. Worried that the prototype of eXistenZ might have been damaged, Allegra forces Ted (Law), who also works for Antenna Research, to test it by placing the fleshy nipple-like creation into a hole dug near his spinal cord. The two slip into eXistenZ’s alternative world until a rival gaming company and a gang of ‘realists’ threaten their survival. Cronenberg ‘revisits the relatively familiar environs of biomechanical horror, where slimy visceral thrills go (literally) head-to-head with bleak conceptual angst,’ writes eyeweekly’s Gemma Files.

Camera (2000)

Writer: David Cronenberg

Producer: Jody Shapiro

Cast: Leslie Carlson, Harrison Cane, Marc Donato

Box office: n/a

Country: Canada

In this six-minute short, made as part of the Toronto International Film Festival’s 25th anniversary Preludes series, a veteran actor (Carlson) talks about his life in cinema while a group of kids roam through his home, setting up a Panavision 35mm camera for a shoot. As the actor speaks about his work and philosophy, the equation between photography and death is made inescapable. Like cultural critic Susan Sontag, Cronenberg is concerned with how the camera simultaneously captures and drains the life away from its subjects. Camera is made more piquant by its leading performer Leslie Carlson, a Cronenberg alum from Videodrome, The Fly and The Dead Zone.

Spider (2002)

Writer: Patrick McGrath, adapting his novel

Producers: David Cronenberg, Samuel Hadida, Catherine Bailey

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne, Lynn Redgrave, John Neville

North American box office: US$1.6 million

Countries: Canada/U.K. coproduction

Although Spider (Ralph Fiennes) has been released from a psychiatric institution, he is still in a delusional state. Tormented by traumatic events from his youth, he vainly attempts to organize his thoughts in a notebook. Spider is sure that when he was a boy, his father (Byrne) killed his mother (Richardson) and replaced her with a prostitute (also Richardson). A paranoid schizophrenic, he creates an elaborate roped web in his room. As enacted brilliantly by Fiennes, Spider’s muddled mind can’t erase his abusive, tragic past. ‘Suffused with existential dread, this evocation of psychological torment is both sensationally grim and exquisitely realized,’ writes J. Hoberman of The Village Voice.

A History of Violence (2005)

Writer: Josh Olson

Producers: David Cronenberg, Chris Bender, J.C. Spink

Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, William Hurt, Ed Harris

Box office: n/a

Country: U.S.A.

When the diner owned by Tom Stall (Mortensen) is invaded by a couple of robbers intent on money and violent kicks, the quiet American knows that he has to fight for his life. Stall’s reaction to the situation, which surprises those who know him, makes him a national hero, bringing unwanted publicity, along with a group of characters who claim that Stall is not who he says he is. Struggling to save his identity and marriage, Tom realizes that his peaceful family life has been forever altered. ‘Without compromising his vision, Cronenberg tackles a… narrative of a morality play,’ writes film journalist Emmanuel Levy.