CAN YOU REPEAT THAT AGAIN?” asks Brandon Cronenberg, on the line to SFX from his home city of Toronto. He’s all apologies, clearly squirming as he requests a third stab at the same question. “I’m sorry. There’s this intense static that coming through.
“Maybe we’re being hacked,” he laughs, through the curse of crackle. “Maybe they don’t want this information out there…”
It feels entirely appropriate that technology is against us today. Cronenberg’s new movie, Possessor, is a tech-driven fantasy, blurring the boundaries of horror and thriller just as the identities of its protagonists shift and melt to disturbing effect. In this story the self is a brittle, untrustworthy thing and, as the writer-director tells it, that’s a premise rooted in his own lived experience.
“I was on the press tour for my first feature, Antiviral,” Cronenberg recalls, as the static mercifully recedes. “And when you travel with a film for the first time it’s a bit of a surreal experience because you’re kind of building a public persona for the first time. You’re really performing another version of yourself that goes off and has its own weird life online without you.
“I was, in a sense, having difficulty seeing myself in my own life. I was waking up in the morning, feeling that I was sitting up in someone else’s life, and having to scramble to construct some kind of character who could operate in that context. So initially I wanted to write a script about a character who may or may not be an imposter in their own life, and use that as a way to talk about how we build characters as narratives in order to operate as people. And the sci-fi thriller elements actually came out of that.”
Denne historien er fra Holiday Special 2020-utgaven av SFX.
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Denne historien er fra Holiday Special 2020-utgaven av SFX.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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ANCER MAHAGEMENT
WITH A NEW TRILOGY IN SIGHT, WE SPEAK TO THE DIRECTOR OF 28 WEEKS LATER THE ORIGINAL CHILLING SEQUEL TO DANNY BOYLE'S SEMINAL SURVIVAL HORROR
WHO YA CONNA CALL?
BEHIND THE SCENES AT HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS FOR GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE
SPEAK OF THE DEVIL
THE DEVIL'S HOUR STRIKES TWICE AS THE GENREDEFYING DRAMA RETURNS
SCARRY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK
FROM THE RETURN OF EC COMICS TO SCREAM!, THIS YEAR'S HALLOWEEN OFFERS UP HORROR COMICS FOR ALL THE AGES
UNDEADS REFLECTIONS
NEIL JORDAN ON BRINGING ANNE RICE'S MODERN VAMPIRE CLASSIC TO SCREEN, 30 YEARS ON
MUNSTER MASH!
PRODUCTION HELL, SHOCK RECASTING AND HOTLY CONTESTED AUTHORSHIP. AS THE MUNSTERS CELEBRATE THEIR 60TH ANNIVERSARY, WE UNCOVER HOW THE SPOOKY SITCOM WAS ALMOST DEAD ON ARRIVAL
COMING TO AMERICA
THE MOGWAI LIVE THE AMERICAN DREAM IN THEIR SECOND CHAPTER, GREMLINS: THE WILD BATCH
BEING HUMAN EVOLUTION
IT MAY HAVE BEEN AN INSTANT HIT, BUT BBC THREE'S DARKLY COMIC DRAMA ABOUT A HOUSE-SHARING VAMPIRE/WEREWOLF/GHOST TRIO HAD A STRANGE JOURNEY TO THE SCREEN, SERIES CREATOR TOBY WHITHOUSE TELLS SFX
THE MAINE EVENT
THE DARK IS RISING IN SALEM'S LOT AS STEPHEN KING'S DEATHLESS TALE RETURNS TO THE SCREEN
WHY DON'T YOU STAY FOR A BITE?
THE VAMPIRE COMES HOME AS DIRECTOR EUROS LYN WELCOMES SFX TO HIS NEW DARK COMEDY THE RADLEYS