Hooptober 7.0
34/39 - 4/4 Body Horror

October Scavenger Hunt 67
4/31 - Task 10: Horror film with a female director
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Having just watched Cronenberg’s original it was certainly fun to watch the Soska sister’s graphic reimagining.

While the original is certainly early period cronenberg and focuses quite a bit on the disease and outbreak elements of the story, the Soska Sister’s wisely make their story a bit smaller and focus on the main character’s journey with the outbreak events largely taking place in the background.  With Inventive and graphic effects, this feels of a piece with their earlier film American Mary in ways as they still seem interested on the lengths people will go to individualize themselves.  Having the clinic be a transhumanism institute both provides narrative framework for the fantastical elements of the story and a basis for their exploration of vanity and ego.

The film falls back on some familiar tropes with the main character blossoming from ugly duckling to supermodel by removing her glasses and clearing up her skin...but it works better in context.  Her drive to succeed professionally helps her ignore the grisly aspect of what’s happening to her.  She’s all to eager to accept that its all a dream until the very end.

I appreciate the Soska’s visual style.  There’s one hallucination sequence that is just awesome with stop motion and gorgeous production design.  Give me more of that please!!