10 More Horror Movies Way Darker Than Advertised

The average horror fan knows what to expect when watching anything from Messrs Cronenberg, but while David’s work has always been challenging, with extreme body horror and weighty themes, Brandon’s has begun to meld modern horror’s predilection for the socially extreme into his process, pushing his films into ever-darker places.

On the face of it, Infinity Pool looks like a taught, mind-bending ride, that takes a normal couple - author James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) and his girlfriend - and throws them into catastrophe, as James accidentally runs down a man on a foreign island and is sentenced to death. Luckily, the island also has a cloning machine, and James meets a group of socialites with enough cash to burn so he can literally get away with murder.

And yet, while the sci-fi element is present throughout, and throws up salient questions about consciousness and personhood, the mechanics of this process are not what Cronenberg Jr is interested in. While his father would have taken delight in showing us the fleshy machinery of the thing, Brandon instead uses this as an opportunity to dismantle the person and psyche of James, subjecting him to increasing horrors as he watches his death over and over again, losing his humanity and becoming one with the group.

In all, Infinity Pool is dark and twisted in ways that simply can’t be conveyed by a two-minute trailer, using its body horror merely as a veneer around its true, inner darkness.