Antiviral writer/director Brandon Cronenberg is going to be compared to his father regardless of what work he churns out. This being his debut feature film people will certainly look for the David Cronenberg connection and, in that sense, perhaps it’s fitting his first film would in part play on human genetics as Antiviral serves as Exhibit A in proving he is indeed of the Cronenberg clan. Horrific imagery and a mind-bending plot are front and center in a film that didn’t entirely work for me, but one that gets Brandon C. off to a good start.
Taking place in an unknown future, Antiviral centers its story on celebrity obsession and the sickening levels it has reached. No longer are people satisfied with the TMZ, celeb-in-a-box lifestyle, they want to get closer to their favorite actors and cover models. Now they can. Through a new service in which authentic celebrity diseases are for sale and you can even eat home grown flesh made from the living cells of your favorite celeb, a bite of Paris Hilton is just a trip to your local butcher away and whatever diseases she may lay claim to can be yours with just the simple poke of a syringe.
This brings us to Syd March (a ghostly white Caleb Landry Jones), an employee for The Lucas Clinic where they specialize in the harvesting of celebrity diseases — from herpes to the common cold — to be passed on to adoring fans. Genetically altered, the diseases are “copy written” so as not to be contagious and can only be passed on to the paying customer (though, this does open the film up to a few plot holes), but depending on the disease, it can stay with you for life.
Not entirely content with the money earned from his day-to-day alone, Syd has taken to smuggling these viruses out of the clinic using his own blood stream as the mule. Constantly in various stages of sickness depending on what disease he’s smuggling at the time, he provides these samples to a cellular pirate who’s doing whatever he can to sate the needs of the obsessed public.
However, things begin to go horribly wrong when Syd injects himself with the blood of a celebrity that ends up dead. The disease he is carrying is not only eating away at his body, but he is now carrying around the “Holy Grail” of celebrity viruses and there’s an endless number of people that will do anything to get their hands on it.
Landry Jones proves perfect for this role. His gaunt features, pale skin, long stringy hair and dead eyes serve as a lifeless test tube, perfect for Cronenberg’s social experiment and his cohorts in crime aren’t much more appealing either.
Primarily there’s Arvid (Joe Pingue), an overweight, cell-harvesting butcher who grows celebrity cells to create cuts of meat identical to that of the celeb the cell originated from. He sells these slabs of flesh to customers who then take the dull white cuts home to cook as steaks for dinner. The thought is sickening as are the people profiting from it and those keeping them in business.
Like his father, Cronenberg doesn’t water any of this down and it plays like someone looking at a supermarket tabloid promoting a Lindsay Lohan nipple slip and wondering, “What’s next, infrared up-skirt panty shots?” Cronenberg paints just such a visual as well as gives us insight into what it would be like to see a celeb’s colonoscopy on “Inside Edition.” Here’s a hint, it’s not a pretty picture.
The film itself becomes infected to the point it too is sopping up the infected blood. Opening with a sterile, all-white environment, we first bounce between Syd’s apartment and the Lucas Clinic, but as things begin to derail Arvinder Grewall’s sets grow dirtier and dirtier, be it the grunge of the underworld or the blood splattering on the once clean walls.
Walking into Antiviral I told someone all I wanted was an “f’d up crazy film” and in that sense Antiviral delivers. Body horror endures and Brandon follows in his father’s footsteps with a film I entirely respect as an out-of-the-gate first feature that is faithful to itself throughout and, more importantly, competently assembled.
While I won’t likely be searching Antiviral out for a second viewing anytime soon, Brandon’s next picture will be a hotly anticipated project and if this serves as the youthful beginnings of a blossoming career we may be in for more than a few treats down the line.
