Review of eXistenZ (1999) by Vince K — 19 Mar 2010

"DEATH to the DEMONESS Allegra Gellar!" eXistenZ came out at around the same time as The Matrix, which was a big blockbuster smash that had everyone talking about its dazzling special effects.

In sharp contrast, eXistenZ focused more on having tinier, less expensive effects, like having small 2-headed amphibian lizard frogs walking around. It was much more interesting to me and more "effective".

David Cronenberg has had a long history of putting such bizarre things in his films, yet that is only a small part of why he's my all-time favorite director. Written and directed by him, this time he delved into the gaming world, in that strange and original way only Cronenberg can.

The movie takes place in the future and follows a game designer, Allegra Gellar (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh), testing her new game, eXistenZ, for a focus group (the "isten" in the word means god in Hungarian).

The game system is an organic pod that you plug into your spine through your bio-port (you have to have these installed) with an umbilical cord. Then you play a very realistic (or dream-like UNrealistic) game in a virtual world.

Gellar works for Antenna Research, and they are at war with a competing company, Cortical Systematics. Also in the mix are a militant group of "realists", fighting to subvert both companies in order to prevent the "deforming" of reality.

One of their members tries to assassinate Gellar at the focus group, using a weapon made out of organic material that made it through the security check (it's composed of bone and shoots teeth as bullets).

Gellar is wounded, and Ted Pikul (Jude Law), a mere marketing trainee, is assigned with the task of hiding and protecting her. This is before Jude Law became incredibly famous and started starring in boring mainstream flicks.

I much preferred him in the '90s when he was in cool shit like this and maybe even Gattaca. Anyways, on the run, Allegra soon gets Pikul fitted with a bio-port (he's a game virgin) so they can go into the world of eXistenZ to play the game.

The world is either unreal or hyperreal. (I loved the store, or the "menu" of the game, where you can play one called "Chinese Restaurant" w/ the tagline 'Will you get out alive?!') They do end up at a Chinese Restaurant, and you see that it is a former trout farm now used to farm a wide assortment of mutated reptile amphibians (more astonishing and creative minor special effects, and creepy).

Not only are they tasty, but their parts are what is used to create the game pods. The game involves them meeting several other characters (or players), including Willem Dafoe and Ian Holm, and being the last one standing.

eXistenZ ends with a very cool twist, and it makes it even more interesting to watch the second time around. I caught a lot of small things in the characters' dialogue that eluded to it, but the first time you'll never know what it is they're actually talking about.

This was one of my favorite Cronenberg's. It's so original. I even watched it with someone once who became very horny when they saw the bio-port because it reminded them of some kind of sex orifice.