A 2012 science fiction/Body Horror film; the feature debut of director Brandon Cronenberg — and yeah, he's David Cronenberg's kid.
Not surprisingly, Squick ensues.
In an Alternate Universe set in the present, celebrity worship has reached its logical end: clinics now harvest diseases from the famous, dilute their infectiousness, and sell them to their fans. The success of the Lucas clinic hinges on their exclusive contract with starlet Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon) — who is also the object of obsession of Lucas sales rep Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones). Unknown to anyone else, March has not only been shooting himself up with celebrity germs on the sly, he's also been sneaking said germs out of the lab and passing them on to bootleggers. His scheme begins to unravel when, after illicitly sampling Hannah's latest disease, March suffers an extreme, hallucination-fueled reaction, and finds himself the pawn of rival clinic owners and back-alley genetic scientists.
He followed it with Possessor.
This film provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: Dorian, Mira Tesser, and Steiner.
- Artificial Cannibalism: Aside from paying for strains of their diseases, fans are willing to shell out serious cash to eat the cloned tissue of big stars from licensed, mainstream "meat markets." The company "Astral Bodies" is one such provider, selling items like sausages, bacon bits, and "1st Grade Stem Cell Meat" taken from celebrities.
- Ascetic Aesthetic: Exaggerated. Every single scene, with the possible exception of the scenes in Hannah's hotel, show the white starkness and minimalism, in addition to Syd's paleness as he succumbs to various illnesses.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. As Hannah's disease progresses, she begins bleeding from the mouth.
- Beautiful Dreamer: Hannah — when Syd first encounters her in Real Life, she is asleep in a pricey hotel suite's bed, with a stylish sleep mask on. Her hair and makeup are perfect.
- Character Catchphrase: Syd's Creepy Monotone speech that he gives to each of his customers. It has slight variations, but he always declares that he "understands" how the obsessive fan feels.
- Celeb Crush: It's insinuated that much of the world has one on Hannah Geist.
- Copy Protection: Lucas brags that his clinic's method of coding each customer's DNA into the celebrity disease prevents it from infecting others, either accidentally or deliberately. Subverted by Syd, whose home DNA sequencer lets him crack the copy protection and sell the diseases to black marketeers.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Dorian Lucas and Mira Tesser, and probably Vole too, though he or she never appears onscreen.
- Creepy Monotone: Syd.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Of the "Limited Palette" variety. Most of the sets (the Lucas Clinic, Syd's apartment) are all white, and Syd and the other sales reps wear black suits and ties with white shirts. Only in the "real world" — e.g. Hannah's hotel, Dr. Abendroth's country mansion — is a full (if subdued) color palette utilized.
- Determinator: Syd, who ends up with a flu modified to cause hemorrhagic fever symptoms and hallucinations, keeps going no matter how many times he is beaten or collapses.
- Downer Ending: Syd's sanity and health have deteriorated significantly and he now works at the rival company Vole & Tasser, where Hannah's dying body is preserved to harvest more cells and sicknesses.
- Getting High on Their Own Supply: An extreme version. Syd endangers his own health (to the point of near death) with celebrity illnesses - specifically Hannah Geist's - because of his own obsession. He's shown shooting up Hannah's virus into his arm in the bathroom after collecting it from her.
- Hemo Erotic: The film ends with an extreme close-up of Syd slicing Hannah's arm with a scalpel and lovingly drinking her blood.
- High-Class Cannibal: In a literal version of Eat the Rich, it's popular to eat the cells of celebrities, and it's an expensive practice even if it's experienced by a lot of people.
- Famous for Being Famous: Exaggerated in that nobody ever discusses why Hannah or any of the celebrities in the movie are wildly famous. They simply are. It's left unclear if they are literally supposed to be this, or if it's part of the movie's commentary on celebrity culture.
- Kubrick Stare: Syd does this on the cover and throughout most of the film.
- Large Ham: Averted — by Malcolm McDowell, of all people...
- Like Father, Like Son: Also Truth in Television. Like his father, Brandon started out as a "book nerd" and aspiring writer before catching the filmmaking bug.
- Meaningful Name: Hannah Geist who attains an afterlife of sorts.
- Messy Hair: Syd's hair as he gets more and more ill.
- Mustache Vandalism: Syd defaces a wall-sized blowup of Hannah's face — with blood he just puked up.
- Nightmare Sequence: Syd hallucinates that he has fused with his stolen DNA sequencer. Eww.
◊ - Nipple and Dimed: Several of the starlets appear as virtual nudes on computer monitors — including Hannah, who discretely covers her naughty bits.
- Paparazzi: In keeping with the movie's themes, they now breathlessly report on celebs' health issues ("ARIA NOBLE's ANAL ANGUISH!").
- Playing with Syringes: Reportedly, all the close-ups of hypodermics puncturing skin were real. Syd escapes from Levine's lab by stabbing him with a hypo. In the mouth.
- Privately Owned Society: Separate corporations own the whole bodies and genetic code of the famous, around who their Dystopia exclusively resolves.
- Science Is Bad: With a side helping of Capitalism Is Bad: capitalistic science takes illness and disease from the rich and famous, and people then pay to get infected with it en masse.
- To Serve Man: A side effect of the celebrity-disease craze: butchers who sell steaks lab-grown from the stars' cells. Lampshaded by Syd:"I don’t understand how this is not considered cannibalism."
- Synthetic Plague: The disease that infected Hannah was a genetically modified strain of an illness that had infected her before.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The setting.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Both Syd and Hannah vomit blood on more than one occasion.
- Working Through the Cold: Syd keeps up his official and illicit activities, even as the multiple diseases course through his body. Various co-workers (both legitimate and criminal) comment on how sick he looks; Syd passively insists he's okay.
