Antiviral

Brandon Cronenberg’s debut feature, set in an abstract future in which celebrity obsession has reached disturbing extremes.

Even if a screening is sold out, tickets are often available 30 minutes before the start of the film at the box office at each venue.


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  • Director-Screenwriter Brandon Cronenberg
  • Producer Niv Fichman
  • With Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gadon, Malcolm McDowell
  • Canada-USA 2012
  • 110 mins
  • UK distribution Momentum Pictures

In an abstract future where celebrity obsession has reached disturbing extremes, wraithlike Syd March works at a sanatorium specialising in diseases of the stars. At The Lucas Clinic, adoring fans can be infected with genetically modified illnesses harvested directly from celebrities, with the shared symptoms bringing the consumer closer to their idol. When Syd infects himself with superstar Hannah Geist’s latest ailment, which he plans to sell on the black market, he discovers his life is in danger after the young starlet suddenly dies, and becomes embroiled in a race against time to uncover the truth and find an antidote. At once a sly satire on celebrity culture, and a wildly inventive exercise in contemporary body horror, Brandon Cronenberg’s debut feature in many ways recalls the unsettling sterility of his father David’s early work, while still irrefutably proving himself a unique and distinctive new talent.

Michael Blyth