A controversial horror film that caused mass crowds to walkout during its first screening will air on BBC on Friday evening.
The movie, which stars Twilight’s Kristen Stewart and Lord of the Rings’ Viggo Mortensen, will be shown on BBC2, although it’s not for the faint-hearted.
Dozens of viewers couldn’t handle Crimes of the Future and had to leave the Cannes Film Festival screening.
But the 2022 David Cronenberg hit – which has been described as ‘skin-crawling – also received a seven minute round of applause, as well as an 80% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The film includes a gory child autopsy scene, shots of bloody intestines and characters who orgasm by licking each other’s open wounds
The synopsis reads: ‘As the human species adapts to a synthetic environment, the body undergoes new transformations and mutations.
‘With his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux), Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), celebrity performance artist, publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances.
‘Timlin (Kristen Stewart), an investigator from the National Organ Registry, obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed…
‘Their mission — to use Saul’s notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.’
Cronenberg told Variety previously about the walkout uproar: ‘It doesn’t make me sad.
‘I mean, the worst thing is if your movie is boring and I’ve been some screenings in Cannes where nobody walked out, but nobody cared about the movie either.
‘And that would be very depressing.’
Crimes Of The Future marks Canadian auteur David’s long-awaited return to body horror, and he shot the entire film in Greece.
The story is set in the ‘not-too-distant future’ where humankind is learning to adapt to their ‘synthetic surroundings.’
The evolution moves humans behind their ‘natural state’ and into a new metamorphosis that alters their biological makeup, known as Accelerated Evolution Syndrome.
While some have embraced what is known as ‘trans-humanism’ and its limitless potential, others have tried to police it.
The story centres on Saul Tenser, a performance artist who has embraced Accelerated Evolution Syndrome and has sprouted new limbs on his body.
Tenser and his partner Caprice have used the removal of these organs to thrill their audiences, though they’re forced to re-consider their most shocking performance to date when the government and an emerging sub-culture taking notice.
The movie left critics divided following the screening.
Director David warned in a previous interview: ‘There are some very strong scenes. I mean, I’m sure that we will have walkouts within the first five minutes of the movie. I’m sure of that.
‘Some people who have seen the film have said that they think the last 20 minutes will be very hard on people, and that there’ll be a lot of walkouts. Some guy said that he almost had a panic attack.’
The science-fiction horror airs BBC2 tonight at 11pm.
The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw writes: ‘As he did with 90s hit Crash, the director creates a bizarre new society of sicko sybarites where pain is the ultimate pleasure and ‘surgery is the new sex’
‘At all events, it’s an extraordinary planet that Cronenberg lands us down on, and insists we remove our helmets before we’re quite sure we can breathe the air.’
The Times
Kevin Maher writes: ‘It is immediately one of the great mysteries of cinema that a film featuring mutant ballet dancers, open-air surgery and eroticised wound-licking could be punishingly dull, but the veteran director David Cronenberg has managed it.
‘This dystopian parable, one of the most anticipated titles in Cannes, has turned out to be one of the worst films of the festival.’
The BBC
Nicholas Barber writes: ‘Crimes of The Future returns pleasingly to the obsessions of his earlier films, without reaching the heights of many of them. If only the story had been allowed to do some more mutating of its own before it was put on screen.’
The Telegraph
Robbie Collin writes: ‘Seydoux gives the film’s best performance: even wrenching moments are played at a glassy remove. But unlike Cronenberg’s Crash, which shook Cannes to the core in 1996, there’s no shock of the new in Crimes of the Future – a crucial requirement for every true festival coup de scandale.
‘A provocation aimed at those who booked tickets the minute the trailer hit Twitter can’t help but feel a little passé.’
The Independent
Geoffrey Macnab writes: This is a film rich in ideas but with very little tension or passion. At times, it’s more like a cerebral art gallery installation piece than a full-blooded dramatic movie.’