With Maps to the Stars opening in theaters and on VOD this past weekend, I took a deep dive into the expansive catalog of films from the prolific Baron of Blood, David Cronenberg. This was no easy task; Cronenberg’s filmography is full of characters and themes that represent the darkest of humanity. Even with his recent turn away from body horror and towards shocking dramas, Cronenberg continues to thrill and challenge audiences with his unique vision. The following is a chronological list of my seven favorite David Cronenberg moments, with scenes embedded where available:
The Brood (1979)
Cronenberg’s birth as “a director of significant note” started with his breakout 1979 film, The Brood. The film established him as an artist interested in social commentary represented through horribly visceral body horror and otherworldly distortions of reality. He would repeat these themes and ideas throughout his films, up to (and, really, through) his modern reinvention in A History of Violence.
These ideas were never as fresh as when they first appeared, particularly during The Brood’s climactic final sequence. Psychotherapist Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed) is studying his narcissistic patient, Nola Carveth (Samantha Eggar), who he discovers has the strange ability to autogenetically birth murderous, sexless, miniature humanoids. These dwarf creatures are the physical manifestations of her internal rage and, upon their birth, attack those around her.
The most unforgettable scene in a movie packed full of grotesque sequences is Nola’s final birthing scene. An external womb extends from her abdomen, complete with several extra nipples, ripe for the birthing. Nola parts her draped white dress to reveal the womb, as if she were an angel spreading her wings, which she soon begins to tear at. The womb bursts to reveal the newest monster baby and Nola begins to lick the afterbirth off the creature. The scene is nauseating, nightmare-inducing, and a precursor of the ultraviolent grotesqueries that Cronenberg would reveal in later years.
Scanners (1981)
Scanners might not feature tremendous performances or the most compelling narrative, but it gets to its appeal right away: exploding heads. Scanners are otherwise-normal people with the ability to “scan” those around them, mentally connecting the two nervous systems through telepathy. However, when one scanner “scans” another, things start going haywire; hence the head explosions.
When the villainous Darryl Revok infiltrates a ConSec conference and volunteers to be scanned by their telepath, things go awry. The two begin the process and, for a few moments, it’s unclear what’s happening — until the ConSec scanner’s head explodes in a shower of blood and bone. His shallow breathing, sweaty brow, and the deep undulating tones of the soundtrack make this exercise almost unbearable. Revok is unflinching in his deep stare while the ConSec scanner’s head twitches back and forth.
The explosion of the man’s head is a wonderful, blink-and-you-miss-it special effect pulled off without any indication that a quick switch between the actor and gelatin head was made. Forget that the table and floor are bloodless after his death; Scanners peaks early with this incredible sequence.
Videodrome (1983)
Max Renn (James Woods) has a problem and it’s pretty serious. You see, Max has a malignant brain tumor caused by viewing a television program called Videodrome. Not bad enough? Well, what if I told you that the brain tumor also causes Max to experience disturbing hallucinations where his… yonic chest opens up to swallow VHS tapes?
Cronenberg’s Videodrome is not only visually daring, but features questions about technology and media programming that are still relevant over thirty years later. Its most alluring scenes, like those in other Cronenberg films, feature the appearances of his surreal imagination. When Max’s lover arrives on his television screen and begins to seduce him to join her in orgasmic ecstasy inside said screen, Videodrome dives into the realm of fantasy headfirst. Max’s television set begins to bubble and move as if it were alive, sprouting veins and ballooning out towards him. Caught in the television’s spell, Max slowly begins to insert his head into the beckoning image of his lover’s lips. Watching television too closely has always been bad for your eyes, but this is a whole different story.
The Dead Zone (1983)
Cronenberg’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone is less a satisfying story, more a film that feels like it desperately wants to be a television show. That said, about halfway through, the script takes a wild detour into the serialized cop-drama genre when Christopher Walken’s Johnny uses his psychic powers to help solve a series of murders. What makes the brief tangent so exciting is how Cronenberg visualizes Johnny’s psychic visions. Johnny is visually inserted into the crimes as they happen, forcing him to relive the horrible murders with no means of stopping them. Cronenberg’s camera slowly creeps around the scene and startlingly reveals Johnny, as if he appeared out of nowhere.
When the villain is discovered, Johnny and the detectives chase him to his house, where a brutal gunfight breaks out while the killer commits suicide in an incredibly disturbing fashion. Of all of The Dead Zone’s numerous disparate plotlines, Johnny’s investigation of a serial killer stands taller than the rest.
The Fly (1986)
Cronenberg’s remake of the 1958’s The Fly famously transformed Jeff Goldblum from a pioneering scientist to a monstrous man-fly hybrid, also known as Brundlefly. The Fly even won an Academy Award for the tremendous make-up effects that made this change possible. Goldblum’s final stages of metamorphosis are not to be forgotten, but it’s an earlier sequence, with far more reserved special effects, that remains the most terrifying.
Shortly after Goldblum’s character, Seth Brundle, accidentally combines his DNA with that of a fly, he begins to notice strange lesions forming on his skin. He rushes to the bathroom to inspect them, only to notice something strange going on with the tips of his fingers. The change is small but instantly recognizable, and Brundle begins to peel / pop off his fingernails with the support of sickening sound effects. Eventually, whatever puss has caused this deformity splatters on the mirror before him in a gross display. Nearly everyone has lost a fingernail at some point in his or her life, but by giving this already disgusting experience the horror-movie treatment, Cronenberg manages to tap into a universal repulsion.
Crash (1996)
The controversial Crash — no, not that Crash — opened to disputes surrounding its considerable violence and graphic sexuality, the two often considered in-tandem. After a car crash sends him to the hospital, James Ballard (James Spader) and his wife, Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger), find themselves a community of people who derive orgasmic pleasure from car accidents, particularly recreations of those by celebrities. Just as the characters seem to have their wires scrambled, so, too, does the filmmaking. Cronenberg shoots this like a porn picture that’s mistakenly obsessed with cars, scars, and healed wounds. But anyone surprised by these fascinations clearly hasn’t been watching his filmography.
In a later scene, our protagonists come up on a multi-car highway crash, complete with emergency teams trying to cut the cars open. Suddenly the film becomes a Michael Mann-style love scene, slow motion and electric coloring abounding. Ballard, his wife, and friends glide in and out of the wreckage, photographing the victims and rescue crews. It is clear that, as they chronicle the carnage, that they are at the peak of their sexual desires, as if death itself is the height of ecstasy. Crash might not feature Cronenberg’s signature fantastical elements and science fiction horror, but in this one moment fantasy takes over for both the protagonists and filmmaker.
Spider (2002)
Cronenberg and Ralph Fiennes went unsalaried to create their passion project, an adaptation of Patrick McGrath’s psychological fiction novel Spider. The film has been celebrated by critics and international festivals, but was never released widely in the states, resulting in a lackluster box office for the film. To this date, it remains one of Cronenberg’s least-seen but most-celebrated films.
Fiennes stars as Dennis Cleg, a mentally disturbed man who has recently moved into a halfway house after being released from a mental institution. Cleg mutters what seem to be insanities under his breath as he wanders through dilapidated sections of London. Here, as in The Dead Zone, Cronenberg inserts Cleg into childhood memories as he relives them in their original locations. McGrath’s script asks audiences to sympathize with Cleg as we learn more and more about his tortured childhood and the events that would eventually lead to his incarceration. When young Cleg’s father invites an abrasive prostitute into his house as his new mistress, things begin to take a turn for the worst.
Until a pivotal scene halfway through the film revealing Cleg as an unreliable narrator, a twist that makes us complicit in his mental illness. The moment serves to highlight just how persuasive we are as an audience, even with a character as mentally disturbed as Cleg. We give him the benefit of the doubt and believe his “memories,” even when there is more than enough evidence to suggest that this would be a mistake. This confrontation with reality casts a very different light on the rest of the film as the young Cleg continues with his murderous intentions in both past and present realities.
Eastern Promises (2007)
If you’ve heard of one scene from 2007’s Eastern Promises, it likely involves a bathhouse. Noted for its full-frontal nudity and graphic violence, the fight sequence shocked audiences during its Toronto International Film Festival debut. Critics raved about the film; Roger Ebert even claimed the sequence should set the bar for future fight sequences. In the film, Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) is struggling between his relationship with Scotland Yard and the Russian mafia, both families can claim them as their own. Such stark nakedness in the bathhouse is a way for him to reveal himself fully to the audience and his enemies. When two assassins see him naked and vulnerable, he violently and expertly turns the tables on them. Eastern Promises is interested in analyzing the relationship between appearance and truth and, in this moment, that very distinction is what costs the men their lives.
Beyond the thematic complexities of the sequence, Cronenberg’s camera glides effortlessly through it as brutalities unfold. It is, at times, hard not to mistake his work herein for cinéma vérité. For years I continued to think this sequence was portrayed in one single unedited shot, despite that obviously being untrue; that’s just how wonderfully the images and their movement are constructed. Compare this to what’s happening in Cronenberg’s previous film, A History of Violence, and the craft and construction of the action couldn’t be starker.
Maps to the Stars is now available on VOD and in theaters.
What’s your favorite scene from a David Cronenberg film?