New Stills From Branden Cronenberg’s Antiviral
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Like father, like son. Or so the saying goes. Brandon Cronenberg, son of horror/sci-fi/random twisted subject auteur David, is following in his father’s footsteps. His debut feature, a suspenseful sci-fi thriller called Antiviral, is part of the program this year at Cannes. David’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel Cosmopolis will also premiere at the festival.
A new pair of stills shows star Caleb Landry Jones looking creepy in a lab. Given the eerie subject matter—a lab tech that sells viruses from famous people to their hardcore followers—the expression on the actor’s face looks appropriate for his given circumstances…
Here’s what Antiviral is all about:
Syd March is an employee at a clinic that sells injections of live viruses harvested from sick celebrities to obsessed fans. Biological communion – for a price. Syd also supplies illegal samples of these viruses to piracy groups, smuggling them from the clinic in his own body. When he becomes infected with the disease that kills super sensation Hannah Geist, Syd becomes a target for collectors and rabid fans. He must unravel the mystery surrounding her death before he suffers the same fate.
If this sounds like appropriate thematic territory for a filmmaker named Cronenberg, you’re not alone. This sounds like the sort of bizarre subject that the elder Cronenberg might have explored earlier in his career, and, regardless of who is at the helm, that’s one hell of a premise. There’s a shot of mystery, fanaticism, action, and crime, all of which adds up to an enticing cinematic cocktail.
I wonder if there actually is a market for black market diseases collected from the cells of the famous? It’ll be interesting to see how Cronenberg builds the world around this premise. Antiviral stars Caleb Landry Jones, Malcolm McDowell, Sarah Gordon, and Douglas Smith.
