Editorials
Cronenberg and Cults: Science, Technology, and the Horror of Absolute Thinking
David Cronenberg’s films do not delve too deeply into organized religion, but they provide an interesting lens into how a cult mentality can creep into different groups. In Cronenberg’s work there is something sinister about any group or organization that has an unshakeable goal, philosophy, or who thinks their chosen way of life is correct. And as someone who is more secular in his views, it makes sense that there is paranoia about a group that thinks they have the “right” answers, and that does not leave space for any other ways of life. While Cronenberg is not the type to place value judgments within his work, there is a hefty amount of skepticism.
Absolute Thinking and the Psychology Behind Cult Behavior
And breaking this down on a base level I understand why, it comes down to the type of absolute thinking associated with cult mentality. In high school I took a semantics class and one day our teacher gave us an evaluation to fill out and did not tell us what it was for. There was a long list of statements, and we were meant to select if we absolutely agreed, absolutely disagreed, or were uncertain. Once we were done we were told it did not really matter which questions we answered with agree or disagree, it was about the number of questions we answered with an absolute statement.
She told us this was an old method to evaluate someone’s mental state, the more absolutes they believed in, the more of a chance they were “mentally disturbed”. Now this was an outdated evaluation, but the general idea makes sense. The more you believe in absolutes and cannot see anything outside of that, there is cause for concern.
And these absolutes are often a foundation of cult mentality. In his work we see various kinds of cult mentalities; science/medicine, the government/corporations, and technology, amongst others. As Masha (Lynne Gorman) says in Videodrome, what makes it dangerous is not the technology itself, but the fact that the group behind it has an unshakeable philosophy they wish to impose on others. And when these groups hold onto these ideals to the extreme, where they force it onto others, it becomes dangerous.
The Cult of Science and Experimental Psychology in Cronenberg Films
Science, medicine, and psychology come up frequently in the works of Cronenberg, as do the cult-like followings they can hold. One of the best examples of this is The Brood (1979), a film based on his personal trauma around his divorce. Cronenberg had a fierce custody battle, and at one point his ex-wife abducted their daughter and joined a cult centered around a psychology guru. Ultimately, his struggle to get his daughter back was the inspiration for The Brood which focuses on the strained relationship of Nola (Samantha Eggar) and her husband Frank (Art Hindle).
She, like many others, has fallen under the spell of psychoanalyst Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed). Raglan forces his patients to relive their past traumas and release them in such a way that they begin to have physiological reactions to it. While many revere this man and his experimental treatments, Frank does some digging and finds that his therapies have also caused people to develop things like cancerous tumors.
Charismatic Gurus and Manipulation in Cronenberg’s Cinema
Cronenberg returns to the idea of a charismatic psychology guru in Maps to the Stars (2014) with his character Dr. Stafford Weiss (John Cusack). His client Havana (Julianne Moore), is processing trauma from childhood abuse. He uses a combination of treatments involving physical movement, massage, and role play which harken back significantly to Raglan’s form of therapy.
Corporate Power, Government Control, and the Cult of Capitalism
Perhaps this could also be known as the cult of money or the cult of capitalism, but it is curious how the interests of corporations and the government often bleed into each other in Cronenberg films. In an early teleplay he directed in 1972 called “Secret Weapons,” it is mentioned that government, corporate, and religious bodies have all come together as one unit to snuff out rebel groups. Not a giant leap considering the state of the United States right now.
Videodrome is one such example of this, as there are multiple groups vying for the Videodrome technology as they believe they can manipulate the minds of people if they are able to get it under their control. Barry Convex (Leslie Carlson) is the head of an eyeglass company known as Spectacular Optical Corporation that is a front for an arms company. Through Videodrome he and his associates hope to weed out those obsessed with sex and violence because they are ruining society.
In Cronenberg’s film Crimes of the Future (2022), humans have evolved past the point of feeling pain or being affected by many diseases. This change concerns the government, who want to control the narrative on human evolution as well as catalogue any abnormalities they find in people. When it is revealed that there are humans being born who can digest plastics, they jump into action and do what they can to manipulate the story so that people do not know about this new kind of evolution, as they believe human evolution has gone wrong. Scanners works with similar ideas as corporations work hand in hand with governmental bodies to control these telepathic humans known as “scanners”. Using propaganda, pushing specific agendas, and manipulating news stories, these shady capitalist bodies are able to do their bidding.
Technology as Religion: Body Horror and Tech Devotion
Technology is one of the larger themes that Cronenberg explores. Particularly the ways in which humans have developed a dependency on technology of various kinds certainly lends itself to cult-like ideas. eXistenZ is a perfect example of this, with the ways in which videogame designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is held up almost as a religious figure for her work. The fusion of the body with tech to play her games that transport people into a world that feels almost indistinguishable from real life has an almost addictive quality about it that people yearn for. Similarly in Videodrome, the devotees who go to the homeless shelter and consume television for hours on end help to support Bianca (Sonja Smits) and Brian O’Blivion’s (Jack Creley) idea that television will replace real life.
If Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) had gotten anyone to actually go into the pods, he may have had the makings of a cult on his hands in The Fly. His steadfast belief that the effects of the transporter made him healthier and imbued him with more vitality has the makings of one of these tech cults. And of course there is Crash, with Vaughn (Elias Koteas), who’s the perfect example of a cult leader and his followers who have devoted themselves to experiencing the orgasmic thrill of a near-death car crash experience. Deep devotion to tech in many ways replaces the need or want of any god or religious structure.
Organized Crime, Hollywood, and Counterculture as Modern Cults
There are plenty of other examples of cults and cult mentality in Cronenberg’s work, including the cult of organized crime (Eastern Promises, A History of Violence), the cult of Hollywood (Maps to the Stars), Counterculture groups like those in Cosmopolis and Crimes of the Future. While the ideas that these people and groups cling to are not inherently bad, at least in the way they are framed in his work. They do provide a lens into Cronenberg’s skepticism about devotion and absolutes at the core of cult mentality.
The United States spent most of this year celebrating its 250th anniversary. There have been parades, fireworks, and endless reminders of what the nation wants us to think are its founding ideals. Yet anniversaries are as much about what we choose to remember as they are about what we choose to forget. There is another anniversary this year. Five years ago this month, Candyman was released. The fact that both that film and America are sharing an anniversary this year may have been an accident, but that makes it no less significant.
Released amid another national reckoning over race, Nia DaCosta’s film asks a question that every celebration of America ought to confront: Is it possible to commemorate this nation without fully reckoning with the violence woven into its history? More than a sequel to a horror classic, Candyman is a meditation on the ghosts that haunt America because it has never fully reckoned with the past that created them.
How the Original Candyman Confronted America’s Racial History
The original Candyman understood this. Released in 1992 and set in the almost post-apocalyptic urban decay that was Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, Bernard Rose’s film arrived only months after the L.A. Race Riots, a moment when this country was coming to terms with the way the country’s relationship with Black folks was shaped by decades of segregation and racism.
Most audiences saw a supernatural slasher about a hook-handed killer summoned by saying his name five times into a mirror. But beneath the horror was a far more unsettling story. Candyman was about the lingering consequences of America’s racial history and the way white America has sometimes turned Black suffering into myth instead of confronting the systems that produced it.
The film’s true horror was never simply Candyman. It was the realization that monsters can be born from histories a nation refuses to face. That is exactly where the 2021 film expands the original’s vision.
Nia DaCosta’s Candyman Turns One Ghost Into Many
Bernard Rose’s Candyman explored the legacy of a single act of racist terror. Nia DaCosta’s film argues that the tragedy wasn’t confined to Daniel Robitaille, the man who became the monster. The 2021 film posits that Candyman is not one man but many.
Daniel Robitaille was lynched for loving a white woman. Sherman Fields takes on the mantle of the supernatural slasher because he was beaten to death by police after being falsely accused of harming a child. Anthony McCoy ultimately becomes part of the same legend. Their stories span generations, but they are connected by a nation that repeatedly produces the same injustice under different names at different points in history. The genius of the sequel is that it transforms Candyman from an individual ghost into a symbol of America’s recurring racial violence.
Candyman Shows How History Repeats Itself
History, the film suggests, is not something that happened once. It is something that keeps happening. That is why Candyman is one of my favorite films to teach in my Film and Philosophy course.
Students walk into class expecting a horror movie. They leave wrestling with questions about history, memory, and justice. We spend little time talking about jump scares or gore. (Because, let’s be honest, there is not much of that in the film.) Instead, we ask why some histories become legends while others are forgotten, what societies owe their victims, and whether a nation can ever move forward without honestly confronting the violence that shaped it.
The Horror of Remembering What America Wants to Forget
A good horror film reveals what we fear. What makes Candyman great is how it reveals what we would rather not remember. That is what haunted me the first time I saw it, long after the credits had rolled.
Five years after its release, Candyman remains one of the most unsettling movies in recent years because the history it confronts is not safely behind us. The original film understood that America’s racial violence could not simply be buried, while the 2021 film showed how easily that violence can be reproduced across generations.
Its Unquestionable Legacy in Horror
As America celebrates 250 years, Candyman reminds us that commemorating the nation’s founding requires remembering all this country’s history, including the parts that make the celebration uncomfortable.
We cannot exorcise a ghost by refusing to acknowledge why it exists. Perhaps that is the film’s most important lesson. The past does not haunt us because we remember it. It haunts us because we don’t.
Sometimes it feels borderline ridiculous to gush about John Carpenter’s The Thing as much as I do. It’s gotten to the point where when I’m asked about my favorite horror film by both friends and strangers, a little bit of embarrassment tinges my expression as I answer; it feels so obvious and rarely surprises anyone. Saying I love The Thing when people expect me to bust out an obscure foreign horror film or a cerebral thriller makes me feel like a rosy cheeked child with a propeller hat and a giant lollipop. “Wow, you love one of the most popular horror films of all time, congrats!”
But it’s just the truth. The first film of John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy”, all three of its films are among my favorites. But The Thing has a special place in my heart. It shaped my taste in horror, my taste in most media in general, to be honest. It’s become the gold standard, 10/10 baseline test for the vast majority of my reviews; it is a perfect film, so I judge other films against it. And it’s one of the few movies I have to run back to and watch yearly like clockwork (usually when I’m spending a part of winter tied to the couch). It is, in all regards, the perfect film. If it isn’t the perfect film, then it is at the very least the perfect sci-fi horror film.
So, what exactly qualifies The Thing for literal perfection? It’s a high bar to clear. This article, as informal as it is compared to most of my editorials, is an attempt to explain it.
Even if Carpenter Isn’t the Goat, His Team for The Thing Was
As far as crews go, John Carpenter’s The Thing had the cinematic equivalent of the ’96 Chicago Bulls behind it. We’re talking about an amalgam of some of the most talented people to ever grace the silver screens with their work, boasting alongside John Carpenter two of the heaviest hitters in all of cinematic history: Dean Cundey, and Rob Bottin. Now, we can debate all day about whether John Carpenter is the greatest of all time when it comes to horror directors. Personally, I’m just as liable to say Cronenberg, Del Toro, or Hooper as I am to say Carpenter.
But the key factor to remember here is that Carpenter is the coach, not the star player; the Phil Jackson, if you will. Yes, he is the visionary who directed a near perfect cast of players and composed a tale of pure, apocalyptic paranoia. More importantly, he put together and coordinated the team that would make his vision manifest as reality. And if Carpenter is Phil Jackson, Rob Bottin is the team’s Michael Jordan here, the greatest of all time.
(And to all my Lebron fans, I love you, but you have to sit down for this analogy.)
The Legend of Rob Bottin
Bottin’s story is borderline unbelievable, but it’s the best way to explain how abnormally skilled he is and what he brought to the table for Carpenter. At age 14, Bottin became an apprentice to the at-the-time GOAT Rick Baker after sending him a letter seeking an autograph while sharing his creature designs. He was a quick study under Baker, joining him on the ’76 King Kong and Star Wars, before bouncing to Carpenter’s The Fog and then iconic werewolf picture The Howling.
When he reunited with Carpenter in 1982, he now had 6 classic films under his belt and was moving like an FX bullet train. From ages 22 to 23, he worked on The Thing for 57 weeks in both pre-production and on set. Nearly 24/7 for 400 days, Bottin’s all-gas no-brakes work ethic made The Thing at the cost of his own health, and it resulted in him being hospitalized with pneumonia. He survived and went on to make Robocop. And at least one of your favorite films.
Because no conventional disease or weaponry can kill Rob Bottin.
The Thing Still Features Horror’s Best Practical Effects
Okay, that last bit might be hyperbolic, but the man sincerely put his life on the line to make special effects that haven’t been topped since. Not the best effects in just horror history, or science fiction history, but effects that haven’t been topped in any genre for over 44 years. Not by his mentor Rick Baker, not by Screaming Mad George, not by Alec Gillis (though shoutout to him for his criminally scrapped work on The Thing (2011), and even more criminally ignored work on Harbinger Down). I love Dawn of the Dead, believe me, I do, but he certainly isn’t being beaten out by Tom Savini’s body of work. And that isn’t to disrespect and say that all of the artists that I just mentioned are bad, they’re the best in the game! But Rob Bottin was just that much better.
This inevitably invites the counterpoint: “But it wasn’t just Bottin! Stan Winston and his people were the ones who worked on the Dog Thing to give Bottin’s crew a break, and that’s the best monster in the movie!”. To which I say: look me in the eye and tell me the Dog Thing sequence is better than the Palmer Thing sequence. That’s not even counting the Norwegian Thing, both Norris Things, and the absolutely masterful final creature work that was the Blair Thing. The only reason Bottin and his people didn’t win Academy Awards for their work was because they got jumped by E.T., The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, and Blade Runner all at the same time at the Oscars. It’s just a consequence of being released during the best year for movies ever.
Okay, Now We Can Talk About Dean Cundey
But of course, these effects are then supported by another true legend: Dean Cundey. Selling people on Rob Bottin being the greatest effects artist of all time, isn’t nearly as difficult as advocating for Cundey, who despite an impressive catalog of filmography, slowed down in the back half of his career. He’s often overshadowed in conversations when it comes to The Thing; it’s always talk of Carpenter’s directing, Bottin’s effects, and Ennio Morricone’s incredible soundtrack up front, and rarely any of Cundey’s work. He isn’t spoken about in the same breath as John Alcott or Michael Ballhaus, cinematographers whose work is associated with prestigious cinema because of their proximity to great directors.
Cundey might not be the director of photography your Martin Scorsese’s or Paul Thomas Anderson’s went running to, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think he was the most important cinematographer in horror history, just for his work with Carpenter and Spielberg. He helmed three of the most influential films in all of horror with his lighting and camera operating: The Thing, Halloween, and Jurassic Park. The man’s fingerprints are automatically on the cultural DNA of all slashers, most practical effects-driven horror films, and the biggest gateway horror franchise in film history.
The Dream Team That Made The Thing Perfection
Cundey has gone on record saying that despite Carpenter’s input, he was effectively given free rein to light and frame The Thing. The man didn’t just know how to shoot effects to make them evoke true disgust from the audience, he was able to manipulate every aspect of the shot to terrify. His sixth sense cinematography wasn’t just for lighting and playing with shadows, but for the speed of camera movement, the power of his blocking, and for having a complete grasp of communicating texture and temperature.
And temperature is the soul of The Thing. John J. Lloyd’s production design of the research station and the great white expanse around it feels just as bone chilling as the film’s antagonist, thanks to Cundey. There isn’t a single flat shot in the thing, not a moment that doesn’t feel dynamic, and it’s because of Dean Cundey.
Now, all this being said about Bottin and Cundey, they are far from the only ones who synthesized this structurally perfect organism of a movie. Every bit of Todd C. Ramsay’s editing splices the film’s scenes together to move perfectly in-time. David Lewis Yewdall’s sound design and how it gave a voice to the horrors on screen will be etched into people’s brains forever. The point is that everyone, every single person who had a hand in making the film, helped make the movie flawless.
Like the cells of the thing from another world, each crew member on John Carpenter’s The Thing moved in concert with the next, in unison, to create the greatest sci-fi horror of all time. So, is it any wonder why 40 some years later, the film still has us all captured?
