Cronenberg
David Cronenberg The director I chose to do my Analysis/Research paper on is was David Cronenberg. After screening The Dead Zone, Cronenberg's work impressed me. Prior to this class I had never heard his name, even though I had seen previous works such as The Fly. Since I had already viewed this movie I resorted to alternate movies he had directed. I was able to locate The Brood and Videodrome. The main reason I chose Cronenberg for my director had to do with his style. His movies are not the typical horror flick one has come used to today. When I was younger these movies were low budget and have a character such Jason from Friday the 13th running around with an ax and a hockey mask. Today the industry has progressed to Ben Wilson from I Know What You did Last Summer running around with a sharp hook for a hand. Somewhere between these two genres Mr. Cronenberg's work fits in. He is not obsessed with the body count as many other horror directors are and is also able to develop !a plot rather rare in this type of a film. The three films I chose were able to walk a fine line between horror and science fiction, Videodrome in particular. While The Dead Zone was more of an action film with The Brood being the most true horror movie. I
dual that tries to rise. In The Dead Zone it is Greg Stillsan, a crooked politician tries to rise to a powerful political office through illegal means. In Videodrome it is definitely Barry Convex, who tries to take control of Channel 83 from Max to spread "The Videodrome" across the country. Max could also be viewed this way, he was trying to build a television station through socially deviant content. In The Brood, Dr. Raglan fits this description to a lesser extent. I am not sure what he is trying to gain by raising these creatures, and why did he choose Noah to be the mother for them, remains a mystery to me. I did not like the fact that this was not explained in the movie. I view that as a major detraction to an otherwise good movie. He may just be using his patients as some type of a medical scam. Also, a common trait held by all three films would be the power or lack there of the human mind. In The Dead Zone Johnny exhibits amazing power by solving a murder, saving a boy! in their shoes by the way the movie was written around them. Another actor I can think of who got their start in horror would be Kevin Bacon from the first Friday the 13th. However most of the actors from horror flicks never make it to the level of these three. Surrealism was also used extensively in all three films, hallucinations or visions were quite common place. In Videodrome I was never quite sure if what was happening to Max (James Woods) was a hallucination or real. He was even able to foresee his own death. He saw it on the imaginary television and carried out the action. This is why I had to watch this movie twice just to understand. Johnny (Christopher Walken) also had his on type of visions. He had a psychic mind, he was able to see into the immediate future but also many years down the road. When Greg (Martin Sheen) was going to launch the nuclear weapons in the future Johnny could see this and tried to stop him. Unless one includes the effects of phsycoplasmics t! red for effect. Also there are other similarities, all three of the films were made to appear in the cold (probably to do with the fact that they were all shot in Canada) and utilized darker colors. The Brood and The Dead Zone were both set in winter. I do not recall seeing one use of sunlight in any of the films. These tactics made it a g
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1554
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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