Crimes of the Future

Crimes of the Future is a 1970 Canadian science fiction film written, shot, edited, and directed by David Cronenberg.[1]

Crimes of the Future
DVD cover for Stereo and Crimes of the Future
Directed byDavid Cronenberg
Produced byDavid Cronenberg
Written byDavid Cronenberg
Starring
  • Ronald Mlodzik
  • Jon Lidolt
  • Tania Zolty
  • Jack Messinger
  • Paul Mulholland
  • William Haslam
  • William Poolman
Narrated byRonald Mlodzik
CinematographyDavid Cronenberg
Edited byDavid Cronenberg
Distributed byNew Cinema Enterprises
Release date
  • June 1970 (1970-06) (Australia)
  • August 10, 1984 (1984-08-10) (United States)
Running time
63 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Like Cronenberg's previous feature, Stereo, Crimes was shot silent with a commentary added afterwards. The commentary is spoken by the character Adrian Tripod (Ronald Mlodzik). The film is set in 1997.

Summary

Crimes of the Future details the wanderings of Adrian Tripod (Ronald Mlodzik), sometime director of a dermatological clinic called the House of Skin, who is searching for his mentor, the mad dermatologist Antoine Rouge. Rouge has disappeared following a catastrophic plague resulting from cosmetic products, which has killed the entire population of sexually mature women and allegedly claimed the life of Rouge himself after the virus mutated to affect men.

Tripod joins a succession of organisations, including Metaphysical Import-Export and the Oceanic Podiatry Group, and meets various individuals and groups of men who are trying to adjust themselves to a defeminized world. One man parodies childbirth by continually growing new organs which are removed from his body.

When a patient that Tripod had grown close to at the House of Skin dies from the plague, Tripod checks into a mental health clinic and engages in foot fetishism and showing off a collection of female underwear of women he slept with before the plague.

Eventually Tripod aligns with a group of paedophiles that kidnap a young 5-year-old girl, who has been exposed to chemicals intended to force her into puberty in order to impregnate her. However, one of Tripod's group ultimately is unable to bring himself to rape the young girl and leaves her unharmed and unmolested.

Tripod enters the room where the girl is kept and takes off his shirt, before suddenly seeing the girl produce a cream like white foam from her mouth. Tripod senses the presence of Rouge in the girl, in the form of the same virus that killed him. Tripod suddenly finds his own nipples producing the same cream like substance, which causes him to realize that by artificially inducing puberty in the young child, they caused her to become infected with the plague, and that both the girl and Tripod are now going to die from said plague.

Cast
  • Ronald Mlodzik as Adrian Tripod
  • Jon Lidolt
  • Tania Zolty
  • Paul Mulholland
  • Jack Messinger
  • Iain Ewing
  • William Haslam
  • Brian Linehan
  • Raymond Woodley (credited as Ray Woodley)

Reception

Kim Newman, in his 1988 book Nightmare Movies, has described Crimes of the Future as being "more fun to read about in synopsis than to watch", and as proving, along with Stereo, that "it's possible to be boring and interesting at the same time".

The film has a score of 60% from five reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 5.8/10.[2]

Home video

The film has been included as a special feature in multiple releases of other Cronenberg films, including in standard definition on Blue Underground's Blu-ray release of Fast Company,[3] in high definition on Criterion release of The Brood[4] and also in high definition on a bonus disc in Arrow Video's UK Blu-ray release of Videodrome,[5] The bonus disc from Videodrome was later released on its own as David Cronenberg's Early Works.[6]

References
  1. "Crimes of the Future". The New York Times.
  2. "Crimes of the Future (1970)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  3. "Fast Company (Blu-ray)". DVDtalk. May 20, 2009. Retrieved April 19, 2018.
  4. "The Brood". Criterion Collection.
  5. "Videodrome UK Blu-ray Release Detailed". Blu-ray.com. June 20, 2015. Retrieved April 19, 2018.
  6. "Upcoming Arrow Video Blu-ray Releases". Blu-ray.com. May 6, 2016. Retrieved April 19, 2018.
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