Antiviral

Part satire/part horror movie, Brandon Cronenberg (son of Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg) makes his writing-directing debut with this weird, stomach-churning sci-fi tale about our contemporary obsession with celebrity. In a creepy, dystopian future world, Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) works as a pharmacological salesman at the Lucas Clinic, where fans come to be injected with diseases harvested from cells belonging to the stars they adore, providing a “biological communion” between celebs and followers. Most people crave cells from Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon), a blonde megastar resembling a much-younger Madonna, who serves as the clinic's spokesmodel. Although sophisticated cell-copy protection is in place for each star's infection, Syd manages to smuggle live viruses out of the lab in his own body in order to sell them to Arvid (Joe Pingue), an exploitive human-flesh butcher in the grotesque black-market celebrity meat trade. When Syd is assigned to collect a rare specimen from Geist as she sleeps in her hotel suite, he is unable to resist the temptation to inject her germs into his own bloodstream—only to discover that she has an exotic illness that could potentially be fatal, according to her personal physician, Dr. Abendroth (Malcolm McDowell). A dark, detached film that mixes stark clinical cinematography (with many distastefully visceral injection scenes that are definitely not for the squeamish) with episodes of hallucinatory delirium, Antiviral is a nightmarishly solemn but also uneven film about celebrity worship taken to the nth degree. A strong optional purchase. (S. Granger)