Reviews
DISSECTING ORGANIC CINEMA: ‘Crimes of the Future’ (2022) Review
Is Cronenberg’s comeback brilliant or botched?
I’ve always felt like biopunk is a highly underrated genre, especially with how much screentime cyberpunk gets in mainstream media. The transhumanist dilemma that those works always delve into felt silly when the delineation between man and machine is so apparent.
But biopunk is a different beast altogether. What if those shiny new organs weren’t cybernetic, but organic, and perfectly melded with your own flesh? What if they were grown inside of and on your own body? At what point does the invasive flesh become native? How many new organs must be added until you’re not human? I mean, how human is humanity?
This idea is where David Cronenberg’s triumphant return to filmmaking, Crimes of the Future, dives deep like an exploratory biopsy. The philosophy of self in relation to the human body, culture, sex, morality, and everything in between is the heart of this film, and it’s a heart that beats hard enough for you to hear it from across the room. It’s a heart full of love and intrigue.
We follow performance artists Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and Caprice (Lea Sydoux), a duo specializing in artistic surgeries. They extract mysterious organs being sprouted de novo in the sickened Tenser’s body. As Tenser suffers from “Accelerated Evolutionary Syndrome,” a widespread conspiracy involving Tenser’s groupies, a reviled cult, and the highly bureaucratic government of this world seems to close in around the mesmerizing art he and his lover perform. All the while, a quiet biological disaster looms in the background of their dilapidated dystopia: human beings are no longer able to feel pain, leading to increasingly extreme displays of surgery and the popularization of self-harm for entertainment.
This film has been widely described as sci-fi body horror, and while I agree, for the most part, I also think that a large element of this film is more the sci-fi thriller on a romantic streak, something that the body horror is embedded in. This film’s most gruesome and hard to stomach death is undoubtedly horror, horror so good I felt a tingling in my neck for a few minutes after it. But its framing felt reminiscent of a hit in a mob film, and one of the characters even refers to it as an assassination.
Compared to the rest of Cronenberg’s filmography, Crimes of the Future isn’t unique in this way. Videodrome feels like a spy film where our main character doesn’t even know what side he’s on, and Existenz itself is a full-on meta-psychological thriller. In an intuitive move, this film contains homages and echoes of both of those films plot-wise; if you can believe it, even a large part of the story resembles The Fly.
Overall, the movie ends up feeling self-referential to Cronenberg’s previous films, but in a way that seems fond of them and utilizes them transformatively rather than rehashing the material (even the title is transplanted from another of his films despite not being related to it). Cronenberg gives us a bizarre and enrapturing love story between two characters in an uncertain world, finding comfort together as everything around them crumbles.
And yes, there happens to be freaky deeky surgical sex going on in this relationship, but who are we to kink shame?
As expected, the special effects here are fleshy, uncomfortably squishy, and organically out of place in the cold world around them, so classic Cronenberg. However, some of them feel much too animatronic, and you can tell exactly which ones got the most attention. The highlight of these is the SARK, a bone-plated, biomechanical, autopsy performing sarcophagus. It’s the anchor point for some of the film’s most intimate and painful moments, where Mortensen and especially Seydoux excel. The latter has a gothic and heart-wrenching speech that she pours her heart and soul into at the film’s climax. While the dialogue feels stilted when exposition is on the table, the chemistry between Saul and Caprice is subtle and torrid, saving this film from some of its monotony.
For a film about eccentric performers, it ironically squanders its greatest resource: Kristen Stewart, playing the unfortunately unforgettable Timlin. From the moment she’s first onscreen, she portrays the most perverse and strange character of the cast with a palpable and, at times, borderline comedic arousal. She’s awkward, erotically attuned to Tenser, and behaves like her mind is moving too fast to keep up with her physical, quaking need for recognition from him; it’s just so much fun to watch!
I don’t say unfortunately unforgettable because I dislike Stewart, but because she is irritatingly absent from the film for such an important player, both as an actress and an arm of the narrative. For some light spoilers, Timlin spends her final scene skulking around a corner rather than interacting with any of the main players, which is a crying shame since she could have been used so much more. The same could even be said for Welket Bungué’s Detective Cope, but it’s Stewart who was truly robbed here. That, on top of a potently abrupt ending, left me wanting more, for better or worse.
BOTTOMLINE: Cronenberg delivers a film that feels like looking back fondly on his most inventive works and creates a dramatically heavy piece. While it’s just shy of being truly great due to some of its choices, it’s an experience that grabs you and keeps you under the knife until it’s over. The haruspicy reads: get into the guts of this strange medical daydream and see this in theatres now.
Haunted house stories are a staple in the horror genre. But it’s not often that a haunted house film digs its way under your skin and stays there long after the credits roll. Enter Recluse, celebrating its world premiere at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival.
A Disturbing Return Home Fuels Recluse’s Story
Joan Wyatt, a young and troubled audio engineer, is called back to her childhood home following a bizarre accident in which her father, the famous artist Lawrence Wyatt, was engulfed in flames and left in critical condition. Joan has been estranged from her father for quite some time, so when his longtime housekeeper Lydia leaves a voicemail telling her that he likely doesn’t have a lot of time left, she ignores it. But then Lawrence himself calls, telling Joan that he’s been seeing her mother—who disappeared when Joan was a child—around the house.
Joan arrives to find Lydia armed with a crossbow to ward off Lawrence’s obsessive fans. Her father is bed-bound with severe burns, and is being cared for by a hired nurse around Joan’s age named Emily. Lawrence, who notoriously experimented with psychedelics and occult practices during his career, is barely coherent and keeps his face concealed underneath a crude plaster mask. He keeps asking about his “little spider.” It’s disturbing and deeply upsetting, especially since Joan already has a lifetime of trauma associated with the house. Now that she’s back, she begins to suspect that these “ghosts” aren’t metaphorical. Lawrence was not a good man… but something even more sinister may be lurking in the house.
Henry Chaisson Reinvents the Haunted House Formula
Recluse, written and directed by Henry Chaisson, is a masterfully crafted debut feature that takes familiar elements of the haunted house genre—like a remote mansion as the setting, traumatic family secrets, and supernatural mischief—and twists them into something fresh and, well, twisted.
Sasha Frolova Leads an Exceptional Ensemble Cast
Sasha Frolova stars as Joan, delivering a performance that is both believable and compelling. She’s easy to root for throughout the film, especially as she contends with her father’s unwaveringly loyal housekeeper Lydia, brilliantly played by Toby Poser. Mia Vallet’s portrayal of Emily is also noteworthy, commanding attention from her first appearance all the way to the end. Kimball Farley plays Lydia’s son and Joan’s friend Todd with the perfect balance of levity and tension. Frankie Seratch is enjoyable to watch as the opportunistic nepo baby art dealer Tom. Rounding out the cast is Xander Berkeley as Lawrence; even from behind a mask, his performance is intense and chilling. Berkeley even provided some of his own art to be used in the film.
Sound Design and Cinematography Create Unrelenting Terror
The cast is far from the film’s only strength, though. Sound design by Matthew Rollins will have you death-gripping your seat in the best way, and serves as an integral part of the story itself. Production designer Yulanda Yo-Rong Shieh and art director Ana María Kalvo absolutely nailed the set and made the Wyatt family mansion simultaneously sprawling and claustrophobic.
Finally, we have the beautiful and (appropriately) haunting cinematography by Bryce Holden, supported by the editing prowess of Nik Voytas, Josh Lobo, and Henry Chaisson. Not only did they maintain an air of unrelenting suspense throughout the entire film, but they also executed some of the most disturbing and bone-chilling jump scares I’ve seen in recent years.
Seriously: One of those jump scares made me feel physically ill. You’ll know it when you see it for yourself.
Recluse had its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival 2026.
One of my favorite special interests is the Mormon-millionaire-real-estate-tycoon-owned Skinwalker Ranch. Mormon millionaire Brandon Fugal has crafted a wonderfully apophenic history in his post-Bigelow ownership. His perfectly curated release of pseudo-information through the lens of a History Channel TV show did wonders not just for his wallet but for docu-dramas as a whole. Fugal did what The Curse of Oak Island could have only wished to accomplish. BUT, three years before Joseph Smith’s teachings made their way to the Uinta Basin, a group of filmmakers set out to capitalize on one of America’s strangest phenomena. Skinwalker Ranch is a film that is as perplexing as it is insufferable.
Skinwalker Ranch: Missing Children, UFOs, and Found Footage Chaos
In 2010, Hoyt’s (Jon Gries) son disappeared in a blinding ball of light. Some time later, Modern Defense Enterprises sent a team of experts to Hoyt’s property to study what happened to Cody (Nash Lucas). Upon arriving at the property, MDE sets up a reality-TV-like number of security cameras in the hopes of finding anything. But what they found may just make them wish they hadn’t set foot on this property.
The Real History Behind Skinwalker Ranch Lore
As stated, the story of and behind Skinwalker Ranch is one of my favorite bits of Americana. From the Sherman family’s story, through Robert Bigelow’s ownership, all the way to its current Mormon occupation, the history behind Skinwalker Ranch runs deep. Dire wolves, dino beavers, and disappearing orbs, oh my! Whether you believe in the stories or not, Skinwalker Ranch is one of America’s biggest pieces of lore.
One of my favorite theories is that a resource-observing beacon was placed by, for lack of a better term, aliens when Pangea existed. Throughout the years, the dissolution of Pangea shifted the location of where the aliens placed the beacon to what is now considered the Mesa on the northern portion of Skinwalker Ranch’s property. The said beacon could very possibly be what causes the mysterious 1.6 GHz signal on the ranch, or why there are so many UAP sightings around the Mesa.
How Skinwalker Ranch Wastes Its Fascinating Premise
Now, I know all of this has been discovered post-Skinwalker Ranch (movie), but Hunt for the Skinwalker and Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, by Colm Kelleher and George Knapp (and James T. Lacatski for Pentagon), had already been released. Dino beavers on Skinwalker Ranch had already been discussed. The true terror of Skinwalker Ranch had been disseminated by three highly regarded UFOlogists. So, for writer Adam Ohler (and story by Devin McGinn, Steve Berg, Ken Bretschneider, and Murphy Michaels) to craft such a plain story that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what makes Skinwalker Ranch even slightly interesting is confounding. It feels as if the writer/story creators heard the term “Skinwalker Ranch” and decided to focus on that, and that alone. Skinwalker Ranch has zero world-building, and hopes that the title is titillating enough to get someone to click ‘play’.
The singular great aspect about Skinwalker Ranch is the casting of Jon Gries (Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite) and Michael Horse (Deputy Hawk in Twin Peaks). Gries does enough carrying in this film to make up for dropping that winning pass. And it’s just wonderful to see Michael Horse in a film, even if he’s cast as a token Native American whose only purpose is to make the writers feel better for capitalizing on Native American lore. Besides that, the acting in Skinwalker Ranch is beyond atrocious. In fact, the acting feels so unnatural that I honestly thought the team from MDE was going to turn out to be the aliens that kidnapped Cody. Turns out, the story doesn’t even attempt to be 1% as clever as that.
A Massive Found Footage Failure
Skinwalker Ranch not only fails at being an interesting sci-fi horror flick, but it also fails at being a found footage flick. Full of awful CGI, bad acting, and an even worse script, Skinwalker Ranch exists as nothing more than a time waster. In fact, Travis Walton’s experience in Fire in the Sky would be more entertaining to take part in than watching even two minutes of this film–I’d rather get dry probed by the Hyperboreans than ever think of this movie again.
