David Cronenberg’s frankly fascinating film resume is about to get a little longer with Crimes of the Future, a scifi thriller that explore the ethics of digital technology just a few years hence. The man behind movies like Scanners, The Fly and Naked Lunch has always harbored a fascination for unintended consequences of meddling with new tech, and it sounds like Crimes of the Future will be no different.
The movie will star Viggo Mortensen in the near future as humankind is beginning to physically evolve towards a “trans-humanism” state in order to adapt to our new digital reality. His character is a performance artist who specializes in “Accelerated Evolution Syndrome”, growing weird new organs inside and outside of his body for the delight of his fans. But the government is starting to crack down on such evolution, meaning our heroes(?) have to get creative and Mortensen must “consider what would be his most shocking performance of all.”
Cronenberg didn’t offer any more plot clues than that other than to awesomely say that “I have unfinished business with the future.”
Sounds like just the sort of freaky body horror Cronenberg specializes in. It also reunites Cronenberg with Mortensen for the third time, following their excellent partnership on A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. He’ll also be working with Kristen Stewart, Léa Seydoux and Scott Speedman — a pretty solid cast for something fans of thoughtful, auteur scifi should keep an eye on.