Hey everyone and welcome to David Cronenberg Month my special for Halloween. Throughout the month of October I'll be reviewing five mind-tripping films of one of the most legendary filmmakers David Cronenberg, first off eXistenZ and yes that's how the title is spelled.
We start off at a Antenna Research focus group seminar testing out a new virtual reality game-pod called well eXistenZ along with the game's creator Allegra Geller (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh). As the testing begins one of the focus group members who got in the seminar at the last minute pulls out a rather odd gun and proceeds to assassinate Allegra. He even shoots the.....NINTH DOCTOR...OK OK Christopher Eccleston is not playing the Ninth Doctor here but you know what SCREW IT. The assassin is immediately taken out by armed security; one security guard who's actually a marketing trainee Ted Pikul (played by Jude Law) comes to her aide and gets her out of there. Later in the middle of nowhere Ted proceeds to take the bullet out of Allegra's shoulder only it turns out it's not a bullet it's a human tooth. Yup the gun itself is compose of flesh and bone instead of metal and fires human teeth instead of bullets. They check-in to a motel and Allegra tries to play eXistenZ but without more players she only a spectator; out of nowhere she checks Ted's back only to find out he doesn't have a "Bio-Port". (Basically as the film explains it's a hole put into your spine then shoot a port plug right into it. It's the only means for anyone to play these game-pods by plugging it into your bio-port via umbilical cords or UmbyCords.) Ted is not all that enthusiastic of having a bio-port put inside his spine until Allegra convinces him to do so. She explains to him that her game-pod may have took damage back at the seminar when one of the umbycords got ripped out while the game was still downloading. In order to find out the game itself isn't contaminated or crippled is to play eXistenZ with another player; Ted finally gives in and agrees. They stop by a gas station run by...ugh...Gas (played by Willem Dafoe) who apparently also a black market bio-port installer. And trust me when I say that the means of a bio-port being install into your spine will make you crap yourself for days. Here let me describe it like this basically having a bio-port installed is like taking a shotgun to the spine. So once again Ted is not all that enthusiastic until Allegra persuades him again; so takes the shotgun to the spine with the only side-effect of being paralyzed from the waist down. As soon as the two are plugged in, the game-pod violently shorts out. It turns out that Gas installed a faulty bio-port on purpose and attempts to kill Allegra. Apparently there's an reward to anyone who kills Allegra and destroys the game-pod. My god she must be a great game designer if there's a bounty on her imagine if game designers in real life go through this crap every day gees. Anyway before Gas can kill her Ted shoots him dead with the installer shotgun. They head to a former ski lodge where they meet up with Allegra's colleague Kiri Vinokur (played by Ian Holm), he and his assistant set out to repair the game-pod and replace Ted's faulty bio-port with a new one. Here we find out more this game-pod, basically it's composed of organic components from mutated animal parts. Practically an animal itself, the players themselves are the power source to the game-pod since it's hooked up to the player.
Afterwards Ted and Allegra are hooked in and began playing eXistenZ; inside the game it seems to look all the same. At least from our perspective it looks pretty much the same but from these two it's a completely new experience. We cut to Ted at a Trout Farm and meets with Yevgeny Nourish (played by Don McKellar) he suggested to Ted to go to a Chinese restaurant and order "The Special". He meets up with Allegra and the two head to the Chinese restaurant and orders for the special. And apparently it's a rather unappetizing special, I'm not going into full description of the special trust me. Ted proceeds to snack on the special only beginning to take the bones and construct a gun actually the same gun from earlier in the film. Going on the impulses of the game Ted straights up shoots and kills a Chinese waiter and the two leave. I'm going to summarize the plot of this game world they're in, a group called the Realists Underground fight against Cortical Systematics since they considered them as enemies of reality. Apparently Yevgeny is a double agent for Cortical Systematics and tricked Ted into killing the Chinese waiter who was a member of the Realists. Back at the Trout Farm they found a rather sickly looking game-pod and Allegra decides to port in. Something goes wrong and Ted cuts the umbycord and Allegra starts bleeding to death. Yevgeny walks in with a blow-torch and burns the diseased game-pod but upon burning it the game-pod releases disease spores all over the Trout Farm. Allegra picks up a knife stabs Yevgeny in the back and he dies. Back in the real world Allegra's game-pod now diseased and starts to die, Allegra notices Ted is scratching his back and sees that his bio-port is infective. Apparently Vinokur installed an infective bio-port in order to kill the pod and the game system. Now here's where the film just enjoys messing with your head, as the game-pod dies an explosion from outside goes off and armed commando appears and gets them out. Ted notices that he's from the game yet somehow he exist in the real world, concluding that they might be still in the game. All the explosions and gunfire is part of victory of realism, Ted and Allegra were part of the death of eXistenZ. As the commando is about to kill Allegra he is shot by Vinokur. It's revealed that he's a spy for Cortical Systematics after he defective from Antenna and also has made a copy of eXistenZ for Cortical Systematics. Allegra doesn't take that too well and guns him down, another twist is that Ted's part of Realist group and was assigned to kill Allegra. But Allegra already knows about that and immediately kills him with an explosive she implanted in his bio-port earlier. One last twist of the film is that the events up to this point is a game called transCendenZ. We cut to focus group seminar when Allegra wakes up from the game, we actually see that most of the characters from the game were actually focus group members and yes even Gas and the Ninth Doctor. Though Allegra was a game designer in transCendenZ the real game designer is actually Yevgeny. Is your mind been blown yet? Anyway Yevgeny tells the seminar leader how unease he was on how the game starts off with the assassination attempt on the game designer and the entirely of the game was in the theme of anti-game and that these thoughts may have come from one of the testers. Yevgeny and the seminar leader are approached by Allegra and Ted and they quote on Yevgeny on how he must be punish for deforming reality. Before Yevgeny can react they shot him dead and the films with one of the testers asking them "Are we still in the game"?
My Final Verdict: This film does get a little confusing with its plot-twist at the end but overall this film is impressive. The film does put you in the perspective of Ted Pikul are you back in the real world or still playing the game. The film brilliantly gives out clues that scenes before entering eXistenZ is not the real world but doesn't spoil or everything all together. Also this film has me thinking will video game systems evolve into organic gaming devices where you just hook it right into your spine? Be kinda interesting if it comes to that someday.
Stay tuned as David Cronenberg Month continues with The Brood.
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