Review of Dead Ringers (1988) by Spangle — 23 Feb 2017

Directors of horror films or just weird movies in general tend to gravitate towards tales of identical or siamese twins. David Cronenberg is no different as he demonstrates in Dead Ringers. Based on a true story to a certain degree, the film tells the story of Beverly and Elliott Mantle (Jeremy Irons), twin gynecologists who often pretend to be one another, even with women such as actress Claire Niveau (Genevieve Bujold). Unfortunately for them, this "pretending" is really a manifestation of their affliction: they are siamese twins that are not connected. Their bodies and souls are one, even if their brains go elsewhere. As a result, one becoming addicted to drugs has a detrimental effect on the duo. Featuring class Cronenberg psychology and body horror, Dead Ringers is a creepy and unsettling film from beginning to end.

Featuring Jeremy Irons in a tremendous dual role, Dead Ringers explores the inner working of the mind of a twin who is unmistakably connected to their twin. Messing with their mind and interfering with their daily lives, this connection is one neither is truly aware of or able to cope with. Irons plays these two tormented souls drifting between the calm, cool, and collected nature of them initially during undergrad and when they begin their careers to when their twisted insides and mutant nature interferes on their daily lives and turns both into dying drug addicts who have lost their minds. Deeply psychological, Irons convincingly brings to life the fractured nature of these men's psyches and deftly shows the impact it has on their daily lives with Claire or any of their patients.

Cronenberg, for his part, never truly exploits the situation or the afflictions of his character. Rather, as he is prone to do, he explores the difference. The mutant nature and convoluted interiors of a siamese/identical twin is on full display here, as well as the mental torment it can cause for a person. In exploring this dark side of the human mind, Cronenberg naturally finds a lot of horror and effectively delivers scares to the audience via the torment the characters go through. Above all, his trademark body horror comes into play throughout and at the very end. Surgery and gynecology are a natural fit for Cronenberg, especially when the men believe they are looking at mutant women with weird insides. This paranoia and weird bit of body horror is vintage Cronenberg in how he has fun with messing up the human body and finding horror by making the audience's skin crawl as weird surgical tools are used in operation or people are cut open. The film is very visceral in this front as can be expected. It is also where much of the horror can be found, particularly with the violent psychological body horror finale when Beverly tries to separate them as conjoined twins, even though they are not actually conjoined.

Messed up, twisted, and classic Cronenberg, Dead Ringers may not be nearly as effective in creating scares or messing with one's mind as some of his best work, but it does succeed in creating a creepy atmosphere for Jeremy Irons to have terrific fun with. Irons is creepy, weird, and oddly charismatic in the role as the two twins, playing two distinctly different people who just happen to share a deep, deep connection. This atmosphere lends itself to the excellent character study, writing, and embracing of the more psychological and twisted elements brought forth by the film. Though perhaps not as great of a study of the mind as his later film Spider, the film still explores this unique mental illness to chilling effect, making up for its "lesser" character study with more effective scares and chills. Though hardly one of Croneberg's weirder films, Dead Ringers is oddly reserved for this period in his career and, aside from a few gross out scenes, is largely far more mental and less focused on absurd elements such as the underground. Instead, Dead Ringers is about the connection between twins seen through the eyes of a master of body horror. The end result is just as good as one could expect.