A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.
Practical Effects
The organic game pod — Cronenberg's most disgusting baby.
Writing
Script written in two weeks, somehow smarter than most blockbusters.
Acting
Leigh and Law commit to the grotesque with unsettling sincerity.
Director
David Cronenberg
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Allegra Geller
Jude Law
Ted Pikul
Ian Holm
Kiri Vinokur
Willem Dafoe
Gas
Don McKellar
Yevgeny Nourish
Callum Keith Rennie
Hugo Carlaw
Christopher Eccleston
Seminar Leader
Sarah Polley
Merle
Robert A. Silverman
D'Arcy Nader
Kris Lemche
Noel Dichter
Oscar Hsu
Chinese Waiter
Vik Sahay
Male Assistant
Kirsten Johnson
Female Assistant
James Kirchner
Landry
Balázs Koós
Male Volunteer
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Cronenberg wrote this after fleeing Universal's 'Frankenstein' remake — he called it his 'revenge' against studio interference. The two-week writing sprint was his personal middle finger to development hell.
Released March 1999, literally weeks before The Matrix — audiences dismissed it as a knockoff, missing that Cronenberg's visceral body-horror approach to VR was the grimy antithesis to Wachowski sleekness. History has been kinder.
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