Antiviral

Brandon Cronenberg picks up the body-horror baton from father David in this exceptional debut feature that echoes his dad's early sci-fi perversions, Shivers and Videodrome in particular. In a sterile near future, sick celebrities sell their diseases to competing clinics, which then market them to obsessed fans. Impeccably cast Caleb Landry Jones (X-Men: First Class) smuggles top viruses out of the workplace in his body for illegal pirate use. But when he steals an infection from the world's biggest star, and she dies, he's targeted by rabid collectors and rival corporations. While the movie is too long for its own good, young Cronenberg never loses his quirky conceptual focus or viscerally unsettling aesthetic in this visually pristine cautionary tale. Brimming over with audacious ideas, from biological communion and the horrifying state of celebrity culture, to genetic-copy protection and restaurant food cultivated from superstar cells, this dark fable is a subversive stomach-churner and not for the faint-hearted.