Antiviral
Anaemic
body horror
It’s
often said that the apple rarely falls far from the tree. In the case of Canadian director David
Cronenberg’s
son Brandon
and his debut feature Antiviral, the apple withered on the branch around the time his
father was making Videodrome.
In
the near future, our fascination with celebrity culture has become such an
obsession that for some superfans an autograph just won’t cut it; so desperate
to be close to their idols, they willingly infect themselves with viruses
harvested from their favourite stars.
Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) works for The Lucas Clinic, a company
that specialises in supplying its clients with celebrity infections. If you want the same strain of herpes
as that reality TV star or to catch chickenpox from your favourite actress,
Syd’s the man who can make your dream come true.
But
he’s not above turning a profit on the side, supplementing his income by
infecting himself with celebrity viruses and smuggling them out of the clinic
hidden within his own body, selling them on to black marketer and butcher Arvid
(Joe Pingue)
who also does a nice line in steaks cultured from celebrity tissue - perfect
for those of you who always wished Victoria Beckham had more meat on her bones.
But
when Syd tries to bootleg the mystery illness afflicting megastar Hannah Geist
(Sarah Gadon),
he gets more than he bargained for when the pathogen kills her. With his body and mind deteriorating
and both his employers and the black marketeers after the virus that’s killing
him, Syd finds himself in a desperate race against time to cure himself and
discover who wanted Hannah dead.
It’d
be nice to be able to review Antiviral without ever mentioning director Brandon
Cronenberg’s parentage but it’s almost impossible and four paragraphs too late
for that anyway. A treacle-slow,
soporific meditation on celebrity culture, Cronenberg Jr.’s anaemic body horror
feels like the bloodless, asexual clone of one of Daddy’s chilly, early
Canadian horror flicks, Shivers without the shagging, Videodrome without the vaginal
wounds.
Borrowing
the plot of William Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic (high-tech courier smuggles dangerous
secrets in his brain that threaten to literally blow his mind), stirring in an
unhealthy dollop of bugchasing (the practice where the HIV negative seek out and have unprotected
sex with HIV positive partners in an attempt to share infection) and setting the whole
mess in what appears to be an Ikea commercial, little Brandy obviously believes
he’s saying something deeply intelligent and satirical about our hunger for
celebrity – “Look! Look at the
sheeple eating steaks made of their idols!
That’s you, that is!” – but its all rather obvious, a dilettante hipster’s
self-regarding exercise in smuggery.
Albino-pale
and lacking even basic animation, Landry Jones and Gadon are suitably bland
protagonists, hipster fashion models with red-rimmed eyes and a bad case of the
sniffles, devoid of personality and as underdeveloped as a three-week abortion,
it’s almost impossible to care about their characters but the script does them
no favours and it’s almost a relief when Malcolm McDowell turns up for a few
scenes to give us the creeps as Gadon’s doctor, whose unhealthy fascination for
his patient really should get him struck off.
Tedious,
mannered and not half as smart or funny as it thinks it is, it’s doubtful Antiviral’s slow-incubating mix of body
horror and satire will (***OBVIOUS JOKE ALERT***) go viral anytime soon. Instead, why not head down to your
nearest Casualty department with a couple of copies of Heat and OK! magazines and bathe in the
heady cocktail of celebrity gossip and tuberculosis. The overall effect is much the same.
David Watson
Directed by:
Written by:
Produced by:
Starring:
Genres:
Horror, Sci-Fi,
Thriller
Language:
English
Runtime:
1 hour 48
minutes
Certificate:
15
Rating:
2/5
UK Cinema
Release Date:
Friday
1st February
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