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David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ is not your average science fiction film. In fact when watching the movie, you would realise it’s far from it. eXistenZ provides a dramatic, futuristic outlook to virtual-gaming with the use of organic technology. The film begins with superstar game designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) making a rare appearance in front of a small audience providing an advanced showing of her newest creation in gaming, eXistenZ from Antenna Research. The advanced screening offers normal, everyday computer game players the chance to be one of the first ever to try the new game. Participants of the first game, sit on the stage using a bio-pod, an undulating fleshy mass that replaces the mouse or joystick used today. This is connected to an umbilical cord which is then plugged into a bio-port located at the base of the spine, allowing it to have full access to the central nervous system. As information starts downloading into the players, an assassin stands up and wounds Geller and another Antenna Research employee with a peculiar gun made of bone and gristle that fires human teeth instead of bullets. eXistenZ was released on April 23, 1999, two weeks after The Matrix. The film had a budget of over $25 million which is considered a small budget. Cronenberg’s cinematography approach is unique from other directors. He is a talented and, in my opinion, under rated Canadian director. Directing films such as Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers and Crash, we see Cronenberg’s outrageous style. Through his films he gives us an insight into his world of the terrifying and the truly bizarre. He shocks his audiences with edgy and unexpected scenes that differ from your normal fright in a movie. Although many of Cronenberg’s films have a somewhat vulgar, dated feel to them, they all incorporate similar characteristics which include scenes of violence and sexual metaphors.
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