10 Weird And Creepy Moments In David Cronenberg Films

8. transCendenZ

A divisive film amongst Cronenberg fans is eXistenZ, which takes many of the themes of the director's masterpiece Videodrome and attempts to render them glossy and more suitable for a mainstream audience. Although far from the strongest film that he has created, its posthuman themes and cyberpunk conclusion were, at the time, genuinely innovative and shocking. Having played with the boundaries between virtual and physical realities throughout the film, Cronenberg springs a huge twist in the finale - everything that the characters (and, by extension, the audience) thought was reality has in fact between a video game simulation named transCendenZ. This is a technique that has been played with time and time again in films (with reference to both games and dreams), but the way that Cronenberg masterfully pulls the rug out from everyone is hugely impressive. Even when the characters appear to have completed transCendenZ and escaped from its world, questions are left unresolved. Are they in the real world now? Are they in a different game? Or was transCendenZ itself the reality?