The Death of David Cronenberg: filmmaker embraces death in unnerving short

NFTs are beyond my understanding, but if you’re into that sort of thing you might be interested in going to SuperRare.com and putting in an offer on the short film The Death of David Cronenberg, a 1 minute short film that legendary filmmaker David Cronenberg made with his daughter Caitlin. If you’re not into NFTs, the short is also embedded below – but could be disappearing from YouTube at any moment.

In the short, which was filmed in Caitlin’s childhood bedroom in her father’s house, the elder Cronenberg literally embraces death when he climbs into bed with a 5’9″ silicone body that looks exactly like himself, something the Black Spot FX crew made for the Shudder series Slasher: Flesh & Blood, which he has an acting role in.

The 78-year-old Cronenberg lost his wife Carolyn when she passed away in their home in 2017, and that loss inspired The Death of David Cronenberg.

[She] died in that house, in a bed, and it felt when she died, partly, like I died, and I still feel that. That corpse is my wife to me. So it’s not just a frivolous horror film. It is a film about love and the transient aspect of being human.”

Cronenberg says he embraces death because he has no choice; “this is man’s fate”. But that doesn’t mean he’s done living, as he’s currently in production a new feature titled Crimes of the Future, which will take a

deep dive into the not-so-distant future where humankind is learning to adapt to its synthetic surroundings. The evolution moves humans beyond their natural state and into a metamorphosis, altering their biological makeup. While some embrace the limitless potential of ‘transhumanism’, others attempt to police it. Either way, “Accelerated Evolution Syndrome”, is spreading fast.

Described as a “strange film noir story” that involves some body horror, the film stars Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, Kristen Stewart, Scott Speedman, Tanaya Beatty, Nadia Litz, Yorgos Karamichos, Yorgos Pirpassopoulos, Welket Bungue, Don McKellar, and Lihi Kornowski.

But while we wait for that, here’s The Death of David Cronenberg:

Source: Super Rare, Super Rare

About the Author

Cody is a news editor and film critic, focused on the horror arm of JoBlo.com, and writes scripts for videos that are released through the JoBlo Originals and JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channels. In his spare time, he's a globe-trotting digital nomad, runs a personal blog called Life Between Frames, and writes novels and screenplays.