Review of Naked Lunch (1991) by Trevor C — 30 Jan 2012

Extremely strange and almost impossible to tell what the plot really is. It's very interesting from start to finish however and the concept is pretty brilliant.

Again, it's hard to say exactly what the plot of this film was, but it seemed to follow an exterminator (Peter Weller) named William Lee who, thanks to his junkie wife, injects the powder used to kill bugs into his system, which gives him a strange hallucinogenic trip involving talking giant bugs and alien-like creatures that try to convince him that he is an agent that needs to kill other agents. Eventually he 'accidentally' kills his wife and is forced to leave America to a strange third-world place known as "Interzone" where he attempts to write a novel and is challenged psychologically by the various hallucinations with conspiracies created by a new drug comprised of gigantic black centipedes.

As you can tell already, it is a weird film. I highly recommend it to Cronenberg fans, but for anyone who demands a coherent plot and dislikes style over substance, then just avoid this one.