Antiviral [HD]

Picture Perfect Horror
Antiviral is a new film by David Cronenberg's son Brandon, and needless to say the influence shows through brilliantly in this single attack on the insanely stupid celebrity worshipping culture which has gripped society.
A company sells celebrity viruses to it's clients so they can experience and receive a little part of their favorite star into their own bodies. They can also go out and grab a celebrity steak, grown from the cells of their favorite star.
Naturally things take a turn for the worse for one of the company salesmen, who comes down with a nasty virus all his own while trying to find out what happened in the death of their most famous contracted celebrity.
Sure it's grim and disturbing with a few gruesome and decidedly Cronenberg-esque touches that will make the viewer twitch a little, but the core of this film is just a big kick in the nuts to anyone who is worried about Kim K's dress being a little too flashy for the Grammys.

Abjection Horror Well Done
Antiviral is an interesting abject horror film on several levels. I loved it. The story, the dialogue, the acting (for the most part) and the use of a limited color pallet all combined for an engaging horror flick.

While some have pointed out a perceived indictment on the "thrall of celebrity", the moral dilemma here is not only media or fandom gone amok - it is the separation of the subjective emotions of the fans from the abject, Hannah Geist. Geist in German, as many know, can be loosely translated to mean ghost or spirit.

Geist fandom in this starkly painted world is driven by the desire to connect with the abject (that which is cut off) by experiencing their illnesses, their infections or partake of their body in the form of cell-farmed 'steaks'.

How that spirit is experienced, replicated, stolen, subject to copyright is at the center of the Antiviral thesis. When Syd, a celebrity-virus salesclerk becomes infected with Hannah Geist's latest and...

"Antiviral": Unique But Underdeveloped
Sometime in the near future, some people get obsessed with celebrities so much that some companies start providing these admirers with a new way to get closer to their "stars": getting infected with the same virus as their favorite celebrities. Young Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) works for the Lucas Clinic, a company that owns the exclusive rights for such super-celebrities as Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon).

I know this is a satire - not a very good one, but a satire nonetheless - so I decided to keep watching, ignoring the film's unbelievable premise. But when Syd smuggled the virus out of the company's lab by getting himself infected, I lost interest in whatever was going on. "Antiviral" tries to depict a near-futuristic world that is bleak and captivating, but with its underdeveloped idea the result is simply pretentious and boring.

Caleb Landry Jones, better known for some movie fans as Sean Cassidy / Banshee of "X-Men: First Class" turns in a compelling...

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