The Film Arsenal: Freddy's Glove

Happy Halloween everyone and welcome back to The Film Arsenal. Freddy Krueger you know him, you fear him, you love him. So lets talk about his personal weapon of choice the clawed glove. Introduced in A Nightmare on Elm Street, the clawed glove has been the right hand of death to those who Freddy has crossed paths with. This "handy" weapon has made the character menacing, popular, and memorable even up to this day. One swipe from this glove and it can leave a hell of a mess on Freddy's victims. It slices, it dices, it skews, makes a nifty game controller, and makes a handy apple peeler. Throughout eight films only two other people have used this weapon but not as affectively as Freddy. The only person who can stand up against the clawed glove is none other than Jason Voorhees. The clawed claw don't go to bed without it.

TFV: David Cronenberg Month Review: Scanners

Hey everyone Happy Halloween and welcome to the last leg of David Cronenberg Month so buckle up folks.

We start off at a mall food court where we're introduced to Cameron Vale (played by Stephen Lack). He sits at a table and stares at two middle aged women; he continues to stare while they started denigrating him until one of them begins to convulse. It turns out he's causing her convulsions mentally out of being provoke. He spots two mystery men who have noticed the commotion and leaves but the two men follow him. As he makes it to an escalator one of men shoots him with a tranquilizer gun; Cameron continues to getaway until the tranquilizer dart takes affect and the two men takes him away. Cameron awakens in a room strapped to a bed he is approached by a Dr. Paul Ruth (played by Patrick McGoohan) who informs him that he's a scanner. Basically able to "scan" and control people's minds; in other words way more awesome than those Scopers from Speed of Thought...just saying. The problem with all Scanners is that they're constantly bombarded with hundreds of stray thoughts from other people as it's shown with Cameron as Dr. Ruth brings in a group of people in the room. Dr. Ruth then gives Cameron an injection of Ephemerol which acts as a temporary suppression to Scanners and can help block out the stray thoughts. Later at a ConSec facility a scanner demonstration is taking place and the first volunteer to be scan is Darryl Revok (played by Michael Ironside). The demonstration starts and oh boy does it ends with a hell of a BANG. We see the Scanner trying to scan Revok's mind but struggles to do so; this leads to him to clinging violently until his head goes KABOOM! Turns out that Revok is a Scanner and a very powerful and dangerous one at that. So dangerous that he uses his scanner powers to kill some ConSec men and escapes. At a ConSec meeting Dr. Ruth informs the branch that there's an organized Scanner underground and Revok leads this underground. He then proposes that they send out Cameron to infiltrate the underground. Back at the undisclosed location Dr. Ruth continues to help Cameron to understand his gifts and help to control them. He then shows Cameron a film reel of a psychiatric session of Revok going ape crap crazy. Dr. Ruth explains that Revok has been seeking out other Scanners killing those who refuse to join him and that it's up to Cameron to him. Later Cameron is shown a dossier of a Scanner name Benjamin Pierce (played by Robert A. Silverman) who was in a prison for criminally insane for trying to kill his family. Dr Ruth explains that Pierce could be Cameron's only lead to Revok. Cameron heads to a art gallery where Pierce's sculptures are on display; he scans the gallery owner's mind and finds Pierce's address. He arrives at Pierce's and asks for his help to find Revok but Pierce refuses. They conversation is cut short when four of Revok's people with shotguns arrived and killed Pierce but Cameron uses his scanner powers to subdue them. With his last moments Pierce tells Cameron psychically to go a Scanner name Kim Obrist and her group of Scanners if he wishes to find Revok.

Later at night Cameron arrives at a apartment building where he meets other Scanners and Kim Obrist (played by Jennifer O'Neill). As Cameron joins in on their share scanning two of Revok's people enter the apartment building armed with shotguns gunned down a few of the Scanners. Insert your own "I got a shotgun" joke here. Kim takes out the two gunmen with her powers and the remaining Scanners escape by small bus. A black van filled with Revok's men catches up to the small bus and open fire with their shotguns killing all expect for Cameron and Kim. Gees shotguns are really affective against psychics are they? Cameron and Kim get away from the gunmen but are immediately confronted by a single gunman. Cameron stops him with his power and gains info on where Revok is via a small glass container with a Biocarbon Amalgamate logo on it. The next day Cameron infiltrates Biocarbon Amalgamate and tries to access a computer but no prevail only to find some program called Ripe and that Revok runs the place. Cameron returns to ConSec along with Kim informing Dr. Ruth about Biocarbon Amalgamate (which Dr. Ruth was its founder before selling it to ConSec) and that their shipping off ephemerol to somewhere. Meanwhile Kim is being interrogating by Keller (played by Lawrence Dane) but it turns out is working for Revok and is about to kill Kim. Fortunately Kim fends off Keller and escapes; Keller recovers sets off the alarm. Cameron leaves Dr. Ruth to go find Kim; Dr. Ruth starts monologuing to himself (for some reason) about the Ripe Program. He continues to monologue until Keller finds him and under orders of Revok kills Dr. Ruth. Cameron finds Kim and the two escapes from ConSec; at a gas station Cameron attempts to use his powers to access ConSec's main computers via phone booth. Back at ConSec Keller realizes that Cameron is scanning the computers and orders the computer techs to have the computers to self-destruct. While the computers are counting down to self-destruct Cameron has gain access to the Ripe Program; accessing a list of where the ephemerol is shipped off to. The computers self-destruct but Cameron causes a feedback causing the computers to explode killing some of the techs and Keller in the process. Hell even the phone booth exploded gees. Cameron and Kim stop at a small clinic where some of the ephemerol is shipped to; two revelations are revealed in this scene. One while Kim is in a waiting room she immediately gets scanned and discovers that she got scanned by a pregnant woman's unborn child. The other is what Cameron discovered that ephemerol is being injected into pregnant women ultimately creating unborn Scanner babies. Suddenly a tranquilizer dart crash through a window hitting Kim from behind; as soon as they're out of the clinic Kim passes out and Cameron is tranqed by Revok. We cut back to Biocarbon Amalgamate where Cameron awakens in Revok's office and this is where everything is revealed. It turns out that Dr. Ruth is Cameron's AND Revok's father and the two are brothers. Revok explains that ephemerol was originally used as a tranquilizer for pregnant women but ephemerol had an "invisible" side-effect on unborn babies resulting in creating Scanners. Furthermore, Dr. Ruth injected their pregnant mother with ephemerol resulting themselves becoming Scanners. Revok offers Cameron to join him in the new order along with the new generation of Scanners about to be born. Cameron refuses so Revok decides to "suck his brain dry" but Cameron fights back leading to a psychic duel between the two. And here's where things get really gruesome in this psychic duel so for the sake of your stomachs I'm just gonna skip a bit. We cut to Kim awaken and enters the office where she sees the burnt reminds of Cameron. But shocking she sense him psychically and finds him sitting at a corner only to see that it's Revok but with Cameron's mind now in full possession stating that "we've won" and the film ends.

My Final Verdict: Do I have explain how awesome this film is? The concept of people gaining psychic powers via drugs while still a fetus at the time is flipping scary. Kinda makes wonder what weird stuff your mom was injected with while you were still in the womb. The body horror effects are as gross out as ever and Michael Ironside is awesome considering that he make peoples' heads explode. Like The Fly Scanners had two follow up sequels Scanners II: The New Order and Scanners III: The Takeover and had a spin-off called Scanner Cop. And also like The Fly David Cronenberg was not involved directing them. Cronenberg still makes films nowadays but not as frequent as he did back in the 70s and 80s; and apparently has broken out of the body horror genre since then. His most recent films (that I've not seen yet) are History of Violence, Eastern Promises, and a new film that premiered this year Cosmopolis which....stars Robert Pattinson. Well at least Kristen Stewart or THANK GOD Stephenie Meyer is nowhere to be seen.

So I hope you enjoyed this years' celebration hope to see you again next Halloween as for me I'm gonna take a short break. But I'll be back with a new film to review so stay tuned next time as we look into Where The Heart Is. Happy Halloween.

TFV: David Cronenberg Month Review: Videodrome

Let's talk a bit about David Cronenberg; aside from directing films he's also done some work in a few TV series such as Friday the 13th the Series. Whenever he's not making films he's actually a bit of an actor from rather solid roles to cameo roles in films such as Nightbreed, Into The Night, and believe it or not Jason X. And yes he does have a cameo in this film as well...somewhere.

We start off with Max Renn (played by James Woods....oh piece a candy) president of Civic TV waking up from his couch nap and heads off to Civic TV station showing off some Japanese porn to his TV programing partners. OK if there's any TV station that shows porn I soooo want to work there. Later Max meets up with Harlan (played by Peter Dvorsky) at a clandestine office where he uses the Civic TV's satellite to intercept odd broadcasts from points of country's origin. Harlan intercepted a broadcast from Malaysia which is a display of a woman being tortured in a weird orange room. We cut to studio broadcast of a talk show where Max, Nicki Brand (played by Deborah Harry), and Professor Brian O'Blivion (played by Jack Creley) are being interviewed. And yes the professor's last name is O'Blivion as a TV pet name that is. Back at Harlan's office it's revealed to Max that the torture channel is not coming from Malaysia but from Pittsburgh. Later Max heads to a radio station where Nicki works at as some sort of radio psychiatrist. The two go off at Max's place for a dinner date and here we get to know a little bit more about Nicki. She asked if Max got away porn tapes for her to get in the mood....gees I wonder if she does that on every date just looking for some guy's porn to get the night going. She finds a tape labeled Videodrome NAME DROP; on the tape it's most of the pirated torture broadcast. This somehow turns her on and ask Max to get a knife and cut her at the shoulder but Max notice that there already a few cuts there. Oh man this is turning into Secretary. Anyway this breaks into a sex scene while the Videodrome tape is still playing and....EWWWWW JAMES WOODS NAKED! The next day Max meets up with Masha (played by Lynne Gorman) asking for her to track down Videodrome to have it as a new market for Civic TV. Back at Max's place Nicki tells him that she going away to Pittsburgh for two weeks for the chance to audition for Videodrome. Max gets heavily protective and warns her not to go to Pittsburgh and she may not be coming back if she goes to Videodrome. But this doesn't scare her at the slightest as she takes a lit cigarette and pokes herself in the chest. The next day at a restaurant Max meets up with Masha again and learns that Videodrome is not for the public and that they use real people real tortures not all staged. Put it simply Videodrome is snuff TV. She then gives him a name of who's behind Videodrome and its Professor Brian O'Blivion BUM BUM BAAAA. Max stop by at a Cathode Ray Mission to meet with O'Blivion but instead he meets with his daughter Bianca (played by Sonja Smits). He proceeds to ask her for a copy of Videodrome but Bianca seems to be unaware what he's talking about and Max leaves.

At his place Max receives a package from the office of O'Blivion; the package is a VHS tape and a very lively one too as we see it pulsating which freaks Max out. 0_0 Max plays the tape and it's here things take a turn for the REALLY weird. On the tape it's O'Blivion who takes something about "the battle for the mind of North America is fought in the video area Videodrome". He keeps talking about TV is reality and reality is less than TV; then O'Blivion starts talking to Max explaining how Max's now half of video hallucination. He further explains when had a brain tumor he began having visions; he believed that the visions caused the tumor. And upon removing the tumor it was called Videodrome and O'Blivion was its first victim. More REALLY weird stuff happens when Nicki appears on the TV as it starts to pulsate like its alive organic and Max starts making out to the TV. The next day Max returns to the mission tells Bianca about what he experienced upon watching the tape. And not only that Max was already been exposed to Videodrome via pirate satellite at Civic TV. Bianca reveals to Max that O'Blivion's been dead for 11 months not only that but he also help created the "Videodrome signal" as a way of the next phase in the evolution of man as a technological animal. Bianca gives Max a few tapes of O'Blivion explaining about Max's Videodrome problem, as he watches the tapes REALLY weird stuff occur once again as his stomach has a gaping vagina appears out of nowhere. Well that's what it looks like go see for it yourself. He then proceeds to put his own gun into the stomach vagina before it closes up....ugh....PHANTASMAGORIA A PUZZLE OF THE FLESH!!! Anyway he gets a phone call saying that a Barry Convex (played by Leslie Carlson) wants to talk to him about Videodrome. As he's taking a limo ride provided by Convex he watches a video introduction that Convex is the chief and special programs for a company called Spectacular Optical. Apparently they're the ones who created Videodrome alongside with O'Blivion. Upon arriving at Convex's place Max is giving a device that records his hallucinations and then analyzes them on why he's able to function so far while previous test subjects have not return to normality. Long story short Max goes through his hallucinations and somehow awakens at his apartment, back at Civic TV Max meets up with Harlan to see if he has been recording any Videodrome recently. But only to find out that Harlan has been working for Convex and not only that the signals he were intercepting weren't signals but pre-recorded tapes for Max to see. Say it with me now FOOL YOU! Convex takes a pulsing video tape and shoves it right into Max's stomach vagina, putting him under the influence to kill the station workers and give over Civic TV to Convex. Back at Civic TV Max enters a meeting room and shoots two of his co-workers dead before leaving the station. Still under the influence Max goes back to the mission to kill Bianca. He spots her and about to shoot her until Bianca shows him a video of Nicki being tortured and killed; this somehow snaps Max out of the Videodrome programing. Bianca then tells him that he's now a weapon against Videodrome and must destroy it. Outside of the Spectacular Optical store Max spots Harlan going into the store and follows on in. Harlan tries to program Max with another organic tape but Max resists and mutilated Harlan's arm with his stomach vagina and Harlan somehow explodes. Max heads to a trade show where Convex is displaying his new line of glasses; he spots Convex on a stage and proceeds shoot him dead with a now some type of organic gun and Convex dies VERY VERY VERY gruesomely. Max finds his way to an abandon harbor and sneaks into a ship. He then starts seeing Nicki in a TV helping him to "reach the next phase of the new flesh" by not being afraid for his body to die as he shoots himself in the head and the film ends.

My Final Verdict: This film is borderline gruesomely beautiful, the effects are amazing at the time, and the film just gets into your head with its plot-exposition. And may I dare say that James Woods is awesome...even in bed and naked EWWWW!!! Anyway this film is beautiful and it's worth watching.

OK we're at last leg of David Cronenberg Month one film left in this special and its gonna make your head explode...quite literally. Stay tuned next time as we look into Scanners.

TFV: David Cronenberg Month Review: The Fly (1986)

You may have heard this from many film reviewers that The Fly is one of the perfect examples of remakes DONE RIGHT. And this is not an exaggeration this film is one of the few RARE well-made remake films seriously. Filmmakers these days may actually LEARN something the next time they want to make a shitty remake.

We start off at a public gathering where we see Seth Brundle (played by Jeff Goldblum) being interview by Veronica Quaife (played by Geena Davis). He tries to convince Veronica that he's working on something that can change the world. Veronica is skeptical at first so Seth asked her to come by his lab and she agrees. At Seth's lab it's revealed that his work are two experimental "Telepods" which he demonstrates can teleport objects from one pod to the next. Veronica is deeply impressed by this and wants to write a story but Seth refuses to let her as she leaves his lab. The following morning Seth shows up at a editor's office where Veronica's editor and former lover Stathis Borans (played by John Getz) was not all convince with her story and leaves the two alone. We cut to a burger place where Seth still pleads Veronica not to write a story because of flaw in his telepods which is they can only teleport inanimate objects. While living organic objects...well....uh not very pleasant results as we're about to see. Back at Seth's lab he tests the pods on a baboon and....uh....how can I describe it without making you puking your spine out? Anyway the point is the test didn't work so Seth tries to figure out how to make the telepods safe for organic matter. Later after the two have sex...yep they actually have sex I got no way to segway to it so I just putting it out there to get to the point. Anyway after the sex Seth has an epiphany on what's causing the telepods to be ineffective to organic objects. Which is put simply the computer that runs the telepods can't seem to reproduce organic matter upon re-materializing. As she's leaving Seth's lab it turns out she has been followed by Stathis the whole time she's been with Seth...a creepo. The next day Seth test on another baboon only this time the baboon makes it through safely. As they celebrate this improvement, Veronica notices a package from Stathis and leaves confronting Stathis. Seth takes it the wrong way as he goes into bench drinking mode while talking to the baboon. Only Jeff Goldblum can make it so serious and funny at the same time it's flipping brilliant. Still angry and obviously drunk decides test the telepods on himself but not before he doesn't notice a fly going in the telepod with him. BUM BUM BAAAA! Seth appears from the second telepod completely intact...OR IS HE? Veronica returns to Seth's lab and after another one night stand Seth begins to notice some small changes to him. Such as apparently have the athletic skills of flipping Daredevil. Other noticeable changes Seth filling his coffee with hefty teaspoons of sugar and being rather hyper lately and apparently having a sex drive of a freight train. Because once that train starts going it's gonna be a LONG LONG time for it to come to a complete stop. Veronica notices some strange hairs on his back and tries to cut them off. Seth spontaneously goes hyper again persuading Veronica to go through the telepod so that she becomes "improved" but she refuses to. This gets Seth pissed off leaves and....ugh I'm sorry this is really distracting seeing Jeff Goldblum in his underwear it's just....ewwww.

We cut to Seth arriving at a bar and immediately flirts on a woman who's planning on sleeping with one of the two men in a arm wrestling match. Seth decides to join in and challenge one of the men determined to win the woman. Now in the scene that follows lets just say that if you ever in a arm wrestling match with Clark Kent or Peter Parker it's best to just kindly decline from this match. Because there might be a chance that you'll lose the upper hand; both figuratively and most likely literally. So anyway Seth brings the woman back to his place and shows her the telepods and OH MY GOD JEFF GOLDBLUM'S ASS! Anyway he tries to get the woman to go through the telepods but refuses again Seth get upset and forces her to. Luckily Veronica shows up and stops him; she then informs him that she had the hairs on his back analyzed concluding that they're non-human possibly insect-like. Seth nearly hulks out and sends out of his place. Later after one of many gross out scenes, Seth consults with his computer realizing that during his first trip through the pods there was a second element with him which was the fly. Resulting the fusion of Seth and the fly at a molecular-genetic level. Later in the span of four weeks in film time, Veronica gets a call from Seth asking to come over. She arrives at his place to see that...ugh well let’s just say I don't think plastic surgery is not going be much help. She goes to Stathis for help but he's too keen on helping Seth but he might if she shows him Seth. Veronica returns to Seth's place only to see him doing his best Spider-Man maneuver. No seriously we see him crawling all over the walls and ceiling like flipping Spider-Man. Completely off his rocker, Seth believes that this event has a purpose has a reason of what happened to him. He precedes film his gross out activities on camera as Veronica watches, this of course gives her the proof to show to Stathis. Later at Veronica's place after Stathis sees the video, she returns home informing him that she's pregnant with Seth's child....BUM BUM BAAAA! Soon after they're at a hospital to abort the possible mutant baby, during the procedure things go tits up and.... Well if want to know what happens watch the film.

Anyway it turns out the abortion scene was all a nightmare. Meanwhile, Seth or Brundlefly as he calls himself now consults his computer to find a solution of decreasing the fly's genetics from himself. What the computer has come is "The fusion by gene-splicing of Brundlefly with one or more pure human subjects". Veronica arrives at Brundlefly's place and tries to tell him that she's pregnant but couldn't and leaves but he finds out as he hears Veronica and Stathis outside his place. At a hospital they try to set up an abortion at late hours and were able to persuade a doctor to perform the procedure. But before they start the procedure Brundlefly breaks in and carries Veronica away. Back at Brundlefly's place Stathis sneaks in and waits for him to show up as he's armed with a shotgun. Unfortunately he gets jump from behind by Brundlefly and is immediately for Brundlefly to vomit digestive liquid on to Stathis's hand and foot. Here it's revealed that Brundlefly wants to use the telepods to genetically merge himself and Veronica into one being. And from here on out in this last scene we see Brundlefly transforming into a fly creature and trust me it's that amazingly gruesome. Brundlefly drags her into one pod and enters the second pod however, Stathis grabs the shotgun and manage to shoot one of the cables connected to Veronica's pod renders it unable to work. Brundlefly tries to get out of the pod before the fusion sequence starts it's too as he is teleported to a third telepod ended up being merge with some parts of the second pod that came along with him. With some of his humanity left, Brundlefly gives out a gesture to Veronica to shoot him in the head. Hesitate at first Veronica does so killing Brundlefly dead and the film ends.


My Final Verdict: This film is like a well-made stage play, it has more depth and meaning than the original Fly from 1958. Granted the original has it merits for a film from the late 50s but doesn't quite have the equal level of ones self-psychological obliteration as the remake has. Jeff Goldblum's performance just shines like a supernova and I don't think you'll see something like from Goldblum ever again. Well except for Jurassic Park he was really awesome in that film. The performance between Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis are just near perfect and the thing is this isn't the first time they share the same scenes together. The first time was back in 1985 with the film Transylvania 6-5000 and then the third time 1988 with Earth Girls are Easy. The Fly had a follow up sequel The Fly II in 1989 but unfortunately David Cronenberg was not involved in directing it.

We're about almost at the end and the very gruesome are yet to come. Stay tuned next time as we look into Videodrome.

TFV: David Cronenberg Month Review: The Brood

According to Wikipedia "the term body horror in films is principally derived from the graphic destruction or degeneration of the body. Such works may deal with disease, decay, parasitism, mutilation, or mutation. Other types of body horror include unnatural movements, or the anatomically incorrect placement of limbs to create 'monsters' out of human body parts." Now I can't say for certain if David Cronenberg invented the body horror sub-genre but I can tell you this. When Cronenberg makes body horror films he is the best at what he does and the next three films I'm reviewing in this special are no exceptions.

So on with The Brood; we start off with live therapy session performed by Dr. Hal Raglan (played by Oliver Reed) who specialized in a new technique called psychoplasmics. Which according to Wikipedia “encourages patients with mental disturbances to let go of their suppressed emotions through physiological changes to their bodies." Among the crowd of on lookers is Frank Carveth (played by Art Hindle) whose wife Nola Carveth (played by Samantha Eggar) is one of Raglan's patients. After the live session Frank picks up his five year old daughter Candice Carveth (played by Cindy Hinds) from Raglan's institute and headed home. Upon there while Frank give Candice a bath he notice a dozen scratches and bruises on her back suspecting that Nola may have abuse her when she visited her. Frank confronts Raglan at the institute demanding to see Nola but Raglan refuses. Not fully comfortable that Candice is in possible danger by her mother or any of Raglan's patients, Frank decides to seize any visitation rights until Raglan proves that Nola hasn't harmed her. A little bit later Frank drops off Candice at her grandmother (Nola's mother) Juliana (played by Nuala Fitzgerald). Back at the institute Raglan performs a session with Nola; here he learns how Nola was severely beating by her mother when she was a kid. Back at Juliana's place she hears loud noises coming from the kitchen and goes to check. Once in the kitchen she's immediately attacked by dwarf-like child who beats her to death with a meat tenderizer. Moments later Candice enters the kitchen and spots her grandmother dead on the floor. Later elsewhere, Frank gets a call from the police informing him that his mother-in-law is now dead and Candice maybe traumatized by the event. In other therapy session Nola reveals to Raglan how her father never protects her from her abusive mother. I know I want to feel sorry for this poor woman but no and you'll see why later. Frank tracks down one of Raglan's former patients named Jan Hartog (played by Robert A. Silverman) at a nursing home that apparently ends up with lymphoma cancer caused by the psychoplasmic therapy. This makes Frank completely convinced that Raglan's psychoplasmic treatment is invalidated. Later Raglan is confronted by Nola's father Barton (played by Harry Beckman) upset that Nola has not been told about her mother's death before he storms off. Later after picking up Candice from school Frank gets a call from his father-in-law apparently drunk and angry. So Frank heads off to talk him down while Ruth (played by Susan Hogan) who was accompanying Frank stands behind and watches over Candice. At Juliana's where Barton is he starts to have a breakdown until the dwarf-like child appears and bludgeons him to death. Frank arrives at the house only to his father-in-law dead and is immediately attacked by the dwarf-like child until it starts to die.

Back at Frank's house Ruth answers the phone only to be Nola who misinterprets that she and Frank are having an affair before raging out and hangs up the phone. At a hospital an autopsy reveals that this child has incredibly anatomical anomalies such as having no navel meaning it was never born the same as a normal child has. The next day after reading a newspaper about the murders of Nola's parents; Raglan decides to close down his facility and sends all of his patients’ home exception for Nola. Later Frank meets up with Jan along with one of the patients from the facility who tells him that Nola is still there as the "queen bee of the disturbed children". Now what could this mean? At the school as soon as Frank drops Candice off at the school; two dwarf-like children sneak into the classroom where Candice and Ruth are and proceed to beat Ruth to death and walk off with Candice in tow. Frank heads back to the facility to confront Raglan once again here he reveals to Frank that the dwarf-like children originated from Nola herself they are the result of her rage as the psychoplasmic therapy causes her to parthenogenetically give birth to these "Brood" children. Not only that but they seem to respond to her rage on whomever she thinks of and go kill that someone. Raglan tells Frank to go talk to Nola in order to distract her while he sneaks in a work shed to get Candice out. Frank approaches Nola pretending that he wants the two of them to be a family again to be what it was. It seems to work until she reveals to Frank her "psychoplasmic birthing" as a large womb-like boil forms from her belly. She then rips out a fetus and....proceeds....to....lick it clean. Nola notices the disgust on Frank's face and gets angry setting off the Brood to attack Raglan; he managed to shoot down a few of them before he dies. Heh might as well die like a bad ass. Still in rage Nola states that she'll kill Candice before she let anyone else take her. This sets off the Brood to attack Candice; with no choice Frank chokes Nola until she dies which kills off the Brood. The film ends with Frank and Candice driving away and we get a close up shot of Candice developing small boils on her arm. Oh....crap.

My Final Verdict: This film despite being very little on being suspenseful it still somehow grabs you in. The concept of one person can form a being from their own body out emotional willpower can be scary. And makes you feel paranoid of that person to form some being out of emotional thought and comes after you.

Next time David Cronenberg Month continues with the 1986 remake of The Fly stay tuned.

TFV: David Cronenberg Month Review: eXistenZ

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.