10 '90s Horror Movies You Probably Haven’t Seen
8. Existenz
![There's Nothing Out There](https://d2thvodm3xyo6j.cloudfront.net/media/2014/07/eXistenZ.miramax-600x338.jpg)
eXistenZ falls at an awkward point in the David Cronenberg canon, finding itself stranded in the late '90s, a good few years removed from what most consider the director's body horror classics, but not yet into his highly successful psychological thriller phase. Thus, the last of the director's body horrors for a good long while sees an uncomfortable blending of late-'90s sci-fi aesthetics with the grossness of the '80s' goriest horrors.
Taking up the mantle of other reality-bending features of the time (The Matrix, Total Recall, Abre los Ojos), eXistenZ takes place between real and virtual worlds, blurring the lines as game designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) finds herself targeted by assassins within one of her own VR games. Jude Law's Ted Pikul is along for the ride, and the pair traverse a horrific world where bio-ports connect users to their games via the spine, and players wield such monstrosities as the Gristle Gun, made of teeth, bones and muscle fibres.
While eXistenZ was moderately well received by critics, it crash-landed at the box office, making around a tenth of its budget -- and this may be some of the reason it has been consigned to the cinematic phantom zone, never counted amongst Cronenberg's best and largely ignored by casual horror fans.