Hooptober V

21/31: selected directors

Can you even believe I had never seen this before? I can’t really believe I had never seen this before, but then I kinda can because it came out during my super heavy party days and I was too Busy Philipps for a movie. But still, I never got around to it til now wtfffff. I also can’t believe that Cronenberg isn’t a name I often shout out when rattling off my favorite directors to anyone who will listen, but that’s probably because I’m a little bitter about him straying from the true horror path although even his newer stuff is pretty amazing so maybe I just need to bring him into the top tier…

It's been a while since a finale has turned my opinion of a film from the negative to the positive so quickly and completely, but with eXistenZ, Cronenberg manages to salvage most of the confusion and campiness of the preceding 80 minutes and actually makes it work, marginally. Make no mistake - the rest of the movie is bizarre, sloppy, and really only worthwhile for the visual ingenuity of Cronenberg's obvious delight in practical effects and their implementation. However silly the rest of it is - terrible accents, ludicrous scenarios even in the context of the film universe, and a seeming disregard for conventional narrative structure - I had to begrudgingly applaud Cronenberg for fooling me so completely.

So. Does…

Hooptober 5.0 - 2018 - Film #18

In true Cronenberg fashion, this is your typical metaphysical mindfuck. Blurring the lines between psychosis and simulated reality, the characters in this movie are immersed in a virtual reality game called Existenz to the point that they no longer know what is real and what is not. Instead, they find themselves lost in a set of Babushka doll like game worlds.

Tellingly perhaps, The Matrix and The Thirteenth Floor were also released the same year, both of which delved into similar fare. Virtual reality, phenomenology and metaphysics were definitely in the Gatorade that year (even if Fassbinder beat them all to the punch decades prior with Man on a Wire).

Interestingly, Cronenberg suggests…

Reality is not an absolute. All reality is virtual and it requires great effort of human creative will to make it work. And in eXistenZ gameplaying has become the new religion.

12 people inside a church get ready to plug into the newest, most inventive organic gameplay module and game experience called "eXistenZ". Guided by the game designer of the game, these lucky people pulg in in front of an audience and when they connect, young man from the audience stands up and shoots the designer with a grotesque looking gun that shoots human teeth. The facility secutiry guy must then save the designer and embark with her on a gaming sexual adventure that leads them to question their bodies,…