The Essentials: David Cronenberg’s Best Films

“Scanners” (1981)
It’s a mark of the mind-staining gross-out excesses of “The Brood” that “Scanners,” even with its iconic exploding heads can feel like a nice fireside chat if you watch these two contiguous titles back to back. Far less a horror than a thriller, perhaps even the kind of paranoid conspiracy b-movie thriller that might today be called a “schlockbuster,” “Scanners” follows an underground society of telepaths (all born to women who took the same experimental drug during pregnancy) who after years as social outcasts are being organized into an army of sorts by one of their own, the villainous Darryl Revok (a film- and career-defining performance from Michael Ironside, definitely the film’s MVP). But perhaps because Cronenberg seems less frightened and more fascinated by this twisted take on evolution, and fails to provide us with anyone in this bleak, impersonally corporate and dehumized world worth actually caring for, “Scanners” stops some way short of the throught-provoking cleverness of his best titles. Instead, we’re treated to a series of good prosthetic scenes, visual freakouts and noteworthy moments rather than anything more coherent or overall satisfying. It’s an often intense experience, but one with curiously little sustain — it has almost been overshadowed by its own absurdly famous and enjoyable cranium-busting scene — and as many of Cronenberg’s virtues and preoccupations as it displays, it also suffers from an extreme case of his main Achilles heel, in the complete absence of characters in whose fate we can actually get at all invested. [B-]

“Videodrome” (1983)
Marking the end of the opening chapter of Cronenberg’s many-phased career in vehement, astounding style, “Videodrome” is a near-perfect early encapsulation of many concerns that crop up time and again for the filmmaker: the body vs. the mind, illusion vs. reality, and the seductive, erotic power of technology. And as such it still works like a key that unlocks his filmography: it may be the most Cronenbergian Cronenberg film. It also perhaps marks the first time the director struck a convincing balance between the body-horror genre he was working within, and the sublimely chilly cerebrality of his tone: even as guns graft, claw-like onto bone (prefiguring the less successful “eXistenZ“), and our protagonist grapples with his disintegrating reality, and Debbie Harry writhes in pleasure at a self-inflicted cigarette burn, the film remains cool to the touch, emotionally. This intellectual remove could make proceedings less visceral, and yet that tightrope is walked with characteristic intelligence (like or loathe his films, there is no doubt Cronenberg is crazy smart). Prescient to the point of clairvoyance, yet entirely of its period too (Betamax!) the story of sleaze merchant Max’s (James Woods) descent into techo-induced madness and mind control somehow manages to reward even more in light of the work that would come later. Dated, current and futuristic all at once, “Videodrome” was then, is now and will always be, terrific. Long live the new flesh, indeed. [A]

“The Dead Zone” (1983)
1983 might just be a kind of annus mirabilis for Cronenberg, as in that year two early examples of the twin poles of Cronenberg’s abilities and interests were both released. After the beautiful disturbing oddity of “Videodrome” came his first jaunt into the relatively safe, but foreign (for him) world of the big-budget Hollywood thriller. An adaptation of Stephen King‘s short, lithe novel, “The Dead Zone” stars a tremendous Christopher Walken in an atypically sympathetic role (atypical both for him and for Cronenberg whose leads are more often unlikeably detached or all-out demonic). Walken is Johnny Smith, a small-town teacher who, emerges from a coma after an accident to discover he has unwelcome new-found psychic abilities, which allow him to glimpse a person’s future just by touching them. Jeffrey Boam‘s screenplay condenses the already tight novel cleverly while still fonding space for atmosphere (an interlude where Smith assists a cop, played by Tom Skerritt, is particularly haunting). And Martin Sheen, too, adds a dash of charm and menace as a political candidate who will turn power-mad tyrant if left unchecked (the famously liberal Sheen, many years before his “West Wing” debut, portrays him not unlike then-president Reagan). The stakes may be high, but the movie’s headier themes (it directly asks under what circumstances a political assassination might be justified, as well as wondering if killing to avert a crime can ever be moral) for perhaps the only time in Cronenberg’s career, are overshadowed by the tug of the film’s emotional currents. The love of his Smith’s life (Brooke Adams) has moved on and is now married with a child, and Walken portrays her loss as just as haunting as the images of death and doom that spring unbidden to his mind’s eye. Of Cronenberg’s not-particularly Cronenbergian films, “The Dead Zone” is among the best, and most underrated. [A-]

“The Fly” (1986)
Like a good cover song, a good remake is one that’s distinctively different from its predecessor(s) — it might share DNA but it’s got its own fingerprints and is the child of its own generation. Like John Carpenter‘s “The Thing,” which came out four years prior to Cronenberg’s brilliant re-envisioning, “The Fly” was cutting-edge in effects and prosthetics (Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis won the Oscar for the makeup), but most importantly it took the bare bones of an older story and grafted the flesh of the director’s own unique sensibility onto them. In so doing, Cronenberg turned in the most successful and influential hybrid of his career, somehow smuggling so much of his own chilly, controlled intelligence into a tightly scripted romantic drama that plays out, with almost classical austerity as a three-act tragedy. Containing perhaps Jeff Goldblum’s greatest and most affecting performance, he brings his lanky, oddball energy to obsessive scientist Seth Brundle in all his psychological and physical manifestations: from sweet gauche genius geek to power-mad asshole and finally grotesque, psychotic freak. There are layers of subtext that are appropriate for the age (the specter of AIDS panic haunts the fringes of the film’s degenerating body-horror) and Geena Davis‘ love interest gets to be so much more than the love interest, emerging as its most resilient hero, as well as the star of its ickiest scene (which may be a dream sequence, but it’s still fantastically gross) while also getting to deliver its most iconic line (all together now): “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” [A]