Chad

Undeadcow

Unapologetically strange from go; which is the point of cinema but here it was hard to grasp a narrative thread a first. The various weird scenic backgrounds like the trashed ship or underground tunnels contributed to an unusual vibe and synch perfectly with the plastic eatting. Extremes of personal essence / creativity versus control seem so universal and foundational of art that CotF sometimes feeks impersonal and general outside of it's style. 'It sounds sexier so it's easier to get funding' seems like a hallmark of the film; the grotesque is made to seem sexy but it often rings hollow like subjective fashion. I suppose at the end Tenser kills himself with toxic chocolate; a twists that seems as random and weird as the rest of the film. This is probably a movie I need to sit more with to digest and consider but at first view I wasn't a fan.

brainee

Judging from the other movie thread for this I know I'm in the minority here ... but this really felt like a chore to watch. And I love Cronenberg's classic "body horror" period. This felt more like his really early features: Stereo and the first Crimes of the Future. Synopses that sound much more fascinating than the movie turns out to be. Maybe I had my expectations too high after reading what it's about and seeing all of the stellar reviews.

Voorheeshulk

37 mins in, very strange film, not my ideal scary movie

WillieMLF

Whew... it’s going to be a long night.

jholmes

3.5 out of 5 stars for me.
For over half this movie, it felt like a cool artistic/visual idea (the weird body parts) in search of a story. The two "performance artist" characters were difficult to relate to. And wtf was with that Kristen Stewart role? Like, why did she even do it? It was such a small part and she didn't fit it well.

But the little boy subplot drew me in and by the end I was more invested. It's not a great movie, but I did like the "human evolution" concept. And I enjoyed watching it. I'm glad it was a subset pick. I planned to watch it regardless.

wishbone

Too many groups and their agendas introduced and not a lot of coherence to tie the ambitious story together. "An organism needs organization. Otherwise, it's just designer cancer." Film, heal thyself.

Spiderbite

A compelling concept but terrible execution. I found myself interested for the first half but my attention kept waning as everyone just whispered their lines of nonsense which never seemed to come to any engaging conclusions.

What is amazing to me is that this movie is reported to have a 35 million budget! Where was it? I was expecting the budget to seriously be $5 million or less because it looked it. Hell, I just watched Terrifier (2016) which has a reported budget of $35 thousand and it looked just as good, if not better than this, effects and all.

I really wanted to like this movie and kept expecting some fascinating explanation or engrossing plot twist or something of worth to come out of the concept put forth in the beginning, but this film just limps along until its merciful conclusion.

No thanks. Glad it just cost me a buck to rent on Prime.

My rating: *1/2 out of *****

Toddarino

Like others, I’m a fan of Cronenberg, but this was a miss for me.

Shack

Like others in this thread, I'm a huge Cronenberg fan and watched a lot of his body horror during the challenge this year. I was looking forward to this one, but was a bit disappointed. I think I probably need to give it another watch at some point and see if it clicks with me more.

numbercrunch

Cronenberg's new body horror film about mutated humans who have evolved through surgical modification is a sophisticated science fiction horror story, maybe a bit too sophisticated. The film looks and feels like an academic exercise than a movie. I was definitely luke warm on it.
6/10

Trevor

I too was a bit disappointed in this.

I watched The Brood last month for some really good Cronenberg body horror, and coincidentally, it had on the disc his 1970 film Crimes of the Future. It’s a disturbing and odd thing, but I didn’t count it for my horror list. Not a whole lot in common besides the name really.