Review of Antiviral (2012) by Francisco G — 07 Oct 2013

A rather confident debut from Cronenberg's son, Antiviral is a different beast all together from his father's work, though featuring other types of body horror.

As with any debut from a promising young director, this one is packed with excellent ideas but ends up running out of them too soon and being too heavy-handed while it lasts. Still, this world is fascinating to inhabit thanks to some sleak, super clean cinematography, where even the actors seem to have been picked to look as pale as possible, aided by some strong soundtrack and narrative flow. Unfortunently, we grow tired very quickly of the harpie perfomance of Caleb Jones that unfortunently, someone when writing the script thought it was a good idea that he should act like a sick person throughout the whole thing. It's annoying. Believable at first, but tiresome as with many of the ideas that the movie throws, never fully develops but still keeps munching on them for it's too long running time.

Still, leaves a very good impression that Brandon Cronenberg might've not fall far from the tree and even if he did, it would still be a pleasure to see how he'd turn up, since he clearly breathes cinema.