Day 323 of the challenge! One more day, one more Cronenberg horror fest! Existenz isn’t my favorite tho…
Existenz had been on my radar for a long while. On paper, it sounds pretty rad! A gross out, biopunk thriller about video games and our relationship to technology? Sign me up! Unfortunately, Existenz didn’t gel with me. I love the concept and the design work, but the story just isn’t as deep or thought provoking as I had hoped. Dead Ringers this is not.
All the ideas and world building are explored on a surface level, and executed in a very haphazard, plot driven way. It all just..sort of happens because it needs to happen. I do understand that it’s part of the video game approach to the story (like a cut scene used to advance the video game narrative), but it just doesn’t work that well for me. The whole movie feels tension-less for the most part because of it. Better luck next time…
Cronenberg is turning out to be the director I’ve explored the most over the course of this challenge (I think, I’ll have to check that). All accidental too I should add. I probably have room for one more Cronenberg flick before the year is out…Crash? End it big? We’ll see!