By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Hollywood’s attempts to show us a scary future often fall flat. For example, how after decades of films about killer robots trying to kill us, it turns out the real robot threat is AI simply killing all of our creativity. One recent sci-fi film, however, instantly became the scariest modern movie in the genre because its portrayal of the future is rooted so specifically in the collective anxieties of the present day. That film is David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, and you can now stream all of its bleak beauty on Hulu.
Not A Remake
Crimes of the Future (no relation to Cronenberg’s earlier film of the same name) follows a pair of male and female performance artists with a seriously twisted gimmick: in this world where many humans have developed evolutionary quirks, the male has the ability to grow new organs. Accordingly, his female partner regularly turns surgery into a performance, allowing rapt audiences to see the live removal of his organs. Life is relatively good for these artists, but that all changes when they get roped into police efforts to find and crack down on a group of rogue evolutionists.
The cast of Crimes of the Future is anchored by some big names, including Lord of the Rings legend Viggo Mortensen as the man who can grow new organs. His partner is played by Léa Seydoux, a French actor Western audiences may know from her performance in movies like Dune: Part Two and Daniel Craig’s last two James Bond films, Spectre and No Time To Die. Kristen Stewart also has a small part, and if anything, she is even more infectiously engaging in this role than she was in the breathtakingly weird film Love Lies Bleeding.
A Bad Release
Unfortunately for these actors as well as superstar body horror director David Cronenberg, Crimes of the Future was a dud at the box office. It earned only $4.6 million against a budget of $27 million. However, like much of Cronenberg’s work, the movie has gained a growing cult following since its initial release, and it’s only a matter of time before it gets a critical reevaluation from the audiences of the future.
In the meantime, though, not everyone who saw this groundbreaking movie knew what to make of it. On Rotten Tomatoes, Crimes of the Future has a critical rating of 80 percent, with critics noting that Cronenberg is hitting on some of his oldest themes in exciting new ways. Of course, the movie only has an audience Popcornmeter rating of only 50 percent, with many who saw it claiming that it has little to offer anyone who is not already a Cronenberg fan.
Cronenberg’s Most Accessible
On that front, however, I simply must disagree. For one thing, Crimes of the Future is one of the most accessible films that Cronenberg ever made. Its plot is more linear than, say, Scanners or Videodrome. Also, while the movie centers on weird elective surgery as a performative art, I found that it lacked some of the more viscerally upsetting body horror elements of Cronenberg classics like Rabid or The Fly.
Additionally, you don’t have to be a Cronenberg fanboy to enjoy what Crimes of the Future has to say about the horrors of modern society. A subplot about humans evolving to eat plastic seems terrifyingly relevant amid the growing research about the sheer amount of microplastics permeating our bodies. And the primary plot about surgical performance artists shines a bleak and bitter light on our media habits. If millions of people enjoy watching the pain and misery of others on TikTok and YouTube, is it really a stretch to think future audiences will enjoy watching someone being literally torn open for entertainment?
You won’t be able to answer that question, of course, until you stream Crimes of the Future on Hulu. Will you find this a subdued, funhouse reflection of modern society or simply an exercise in Cronbergian excess? You won’t know, of course, until you stream tomorrow’s crimes today and decide for yourself.
