Auteur Theory

Auteur Theory is back with a special Bonus episode, as we take a particularly deep dive into the work of director David Cronenberg. Chris is joined by film critic and author Hal C.F. Astell for an in-depth look at Cronenberg's college experimental films Stereo (1969) and Crimes of the Future (1970).

These early Cronenberg curiosities can be rough going to watch, but as Connoisseurs of Obscure Cinematic Oddities, Chris and Hal will break down just how they relate to the themes, imagery, and obsessions that define Cronenberg as the filmmaker he is today - these two films offer a fascinating look at an artist in his pupa stage.

Speaking of holometabolismic insects, we'll be back next week with our regularly scheduled programming.

Over the course of this season so far, David Cronenberg has brought us parasitic worms that beget sex-crazed mania, exploding-head hunting psychics, gun-eating stomach vaginas, inside-out baboons, and questionable medical professionals with a taste for the needle.

If you've ever read William S. Burroughs' 1959 surrealist literary masterpiece Naked Lunch, you know it's completely unfilmable... until you take a look at the above resume.

Burroughs. Cronenberg. Mugwumps. If you have a taste for the absurdly bizarre and the hilariously nightmarish, this is a lunch date you don't want to miss. But fair warning: the Black Meat of the giant South American aquatic black centipede may be on the menu. Also, RoboCop and Judy Davis are there.  

Exterminate all rational thought and join Nick and Chris as they take the plunge into Interzone, where nothing is true and everything is permitted. It's David Cronenberg's 1991 mind-fuck Naked Lunch.

When two pre-teens named Hallie and Annie meet through their summer camp, their two lives are rattled when they realize that they are identical twins. With parents, British mother aka famous dress designer Elizabeth and American father, a wine maker named Nick, living in two different sides of the universe, the girls decide to make an identity swap in hopes of spending time with their other parent. The girls later choose to aware their guardians of the swap while at a hotel in NYC, which late reunites the divorced pair and sends them back into remarriage with each other.

I might be getting some details wrong here, as I seem to remember in David Cronenberg's dark 1988 psycho-drama Dead Ringers, both plucky pre-teen girls on a mission to reunite their wayward parents were played by Jeremy Irons. I also seem to remember something about custom medical instruments designed for operating on mutant women, blood-red gynecological surgical gowns, and a sex scene involving medical tubing. I might be getting two different movies mixed up.

Anyway, this week, Nick and Chris are talking David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers. I don't remember if it's the Hayley Mills or Lindsay Lohan version.

This week we're covering one of the big ones. A remake of the 1958 B-movie sci-fi sort-of-classic that, in any other hands could have been just as cheesy as the original. But in the hands of David Cronenberg, it transforms into something else.   Both a milestone of gross-out gore and shocking creature effects, and a touching, tragic love story about a quirky mad scientist and the journalist who tries to love him despite the... changes he's going through. It's Cronenberg's 1986 sci-fi/horror chamber drama hit The Fly.   This was a lot of people's first foray into the twisted world of Cronenberg, especially if discovered on late-night cable as a child. Nick and Chris are joined by podcasters Heidi Schilling (A Schilling for Your Thoughts, Campfire Curmudgeon) and Derk Harron (Slash Page, Here Comes the Pitch) to revisit Seth Brundle's laboratory to find out if it deserves its revered mantle atop the VHS video store horror section shelves.

This week, we watch David Cronenberg accept his mantle as a Master a Horror as he teams up with another titan of the genre, Stephen King. It's the chilly, melancholic gift vs. curse 1983 horror/sci-fi melodrama 'The Dead Zone'.

This week also sees Nick and Chris teaming up with another horror podcast stalwart, Jaime En Fuego, resident Stephen King aficionado and host of the Hail to Stephen King and The Horror Show podcasts.

See Christopher Walken thrust into weirdo territory by a horrible twist of Fate, then never look back! But what vision does he see when he grabs the hand of this cinematic concoction - a modern classic? or a disaster only a power-mad Martin Sheen could inflict on the world? Tune in to find out.

Yes, yes, Long Live the New Flesh and all that. We've all heard the catch-phrases, but really stand back and look at how weird this movie is, especially considering it was released by a major Hollywood studio. David Cronenberg is unleashed for the 1983 sci-fi/horror cult classic Videodrome.   Nick and Chris are joined by filmmaker Dineta Williams-Trigg for this rollocking mind-fuck of a film. It's James Woods back when he was still charming; it's Debbie Harry at her most ethereal beauty; it's stomach vaginas and cathode-ray intestines. It's Cronenberg going full Cronenberg.   You'll have to forgive us if we don't stay around to watch. We just can't cope with the real freaky stuff.

We've all seen the meme. How better to succinctly over-express in GIF-form your annoyance at the latest pop hit or your hatred of Mondays? But do you know its origins?

It's the literally-explosive opening to David Cronenberg's 1981 dueling psychics sci-fi thriller Scanners. The iconic image was powerful enough to make it a hit for 80s moviegoers, a mainstay on late-night cable, and spawned a bevy of increasingly mediocre, Cronenberg-less sequels, spin-offs - and wasn't there a cheap, short-lived TV show in the 90s? - We could be wrong about that one, but it sounds about right.

But how does Cronenberg's original hold up? Nick and Chris are joined by Stephen Andolfo, of Phoenix's own Samurai Comics, to revisit the clairvoyant head-explosion that started it all.

Breaking up with a significant other can be an ugly and scary thing. Especially when your ex falls under the sway of a rogue-scientist/cult-leader who teaches her to channel all of her hatred for you into the tiny, bloodied hands of a gang of insatiable pint-sized horrors.

David Cronenberg climbs onto the therapist's couch for his 1979 horror cult-classic The Brood. This week, Nick and Chris are joined by actor/producer Liz Manning to see if one director's family demons are just as frightening translated onto the screen.

Of course, when you think of David Cronenberg, the King of Body Horror, you also think of drag-racing melodrama. Well, that's what happened in 1979, with his third feature as a director, Fast Company.

For this episode, Nick and Chris welcome their first guest on the program, Richard Lippert. He's an actor, a champion race car driver, and a stunt driver and stunt driving instructor, among many other really cool things; so he brings some awesome insights about the world of auto racing to the show that a couple of nerds like Nick and Chris would never know.

But what about the movie? Cronenberg. Funny cars. Beer and brawls on the back-country roads of Montana. Does it work? Tune in with Nick, Chris, and Richard to find out.

When a freak motorcycle accident sends former porn-star Marilyn Chambers on an emergency trip to the Keloid Clinic for Plastic Surgery; one experimental medical treatment, and a few blood-drained orderlies and farmers later - Martial Law is declared and the fate of Montreal hangs in the balance!

David Cronenberg continues his bid to be Canada's King of B-Horror with Rabid from 1977. This sci-fi/horror hybrid continues Cronenberg's fascination with the erotic possibilities of disease, decay, and horrific violence. But is his second feature as a director after the game-changing Shivers another triumph, or a sophomore slump? Join Nick and Chris to find out.