Antiviral

Plot synopsis:
In a dystopian near-future, Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) is employed by the Lucas Clinic, a company which purchases viruses and other pathogens from celebrities who fall ill, in order to inject them into clients who desire a connection with celebrities. In particular, the pathogens supplied by the Lucas Clinic's exclusive celebrity Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon) are extremely popular, and another employee at the clinic, Derek Lessing (Reid Morgan), is responsible for harvesting them from Hannah directly. To make extra money, Syd uses his own body as an incubator, steals pathogens from the lab, and sells them on the black market. To do so, he uses a stolen console to break the copy protection placed on the virus by the clinic; once injected in a client, the pathogen is rendered incommunicable. He then passes the pathogens to Arvid (Joe Pingue), who works at Astral Bodies, a celebrity meatmarket where meat is grown from the cells of celebrities for consumption.
After Derek is caught smuggling and arrested, Lucas asks Syd to take his place and harvest a pathogen from Hannah, who has recently fallen ill. Once he has taken a blood sample from Hannah, Syd quickly injects himself with some of her blood. He experiences the first symptoms, fever and disorientation, rapidly, and he leaves work early. His attempts to remove the virus' copy protection are unsuccessful, and the console is destroyed during the process. When Syd awakens from severe delirium the next day, he discovers Hannah has died from the unknown disease, and all products harvested from her have skyrocketed in popularity. Desperate to fix his console, he approaches Arvid, who sets up a meeting with Levine, the leader of the piracy group. Levine offers to fix the console in exchange for samples of Syd's blood, but Syd refuses. Levine subdues him and forcibly takes samples from Syd, as the pathogen which killed Hannah is now hotly in demand on the black market, and lethal pathogens are not legal to distribute.
The next day, a severely ill Syd is approached by two men, who drive him to an undisclosed location where Hannah is actually still alive. Syd learns from Hannah's physician Dr. Abendroth that the virus infecting them both has been intentionally engineered with a security measure to prevent analysis, which explains why Syd's console was destroyed. Hannah's death was fabricated to protect her, but she is shown to be in the extreme stages of the illness, extremely weak and bleeding from her mouth. Dr. Abendroth reveals to Syd that the virus is a modified version of an illness that Hannah has had before, and that he himself has an infatuation with her, having had samples of her skin grafted to his own arm. He further suggests that since Syd unnecessarily injected himself with Hannah's blood, he too is "just another fan." As Syd's condition worsens, he returns to the Lucas Clinic, where he traces the original strain of the virus to Derek, who sold it to a rival company, Vole & Tesser. Dr Abendroth discovers that Vole & Tesser patented the modified strain, though their motives remain unclear.
Before Syd can proceed further, he is abducted by Levine and incarcerated in a room where his deterioration and death will be broadcast on reality television to sate Hannah's fans, who could not witness her death. As Syd begins to show the final symptoms, he escapes by spearing Levine in the mouth with a syringe and holding a nurse hostage with his infected blood. After Syd realizes that Vole & Tesser infected Hannah to harvest their own patented pathogen from her, Syd contacts Tesser and negotiates a deal. The film closes with a virtual-reality version of Hannah that advertises her "Afterlife" exclusively from Vole & Tesser. Syd is shown working for Vole & Tesser, where Hannah's cells have been replicated to form a distorted cell garden from Astral Bodies' celebrity meat technology. Viruses injected into her system are sold. Syd demonstrates a new virus as he sticks a needle into a genetically created arm. Later, while alone, Syd cuts the arm and drinks the flowing blood; it is revealed the arm is in fact Hannah's, as her deformed face and body are shown to be in the Cell Garden chamber.

Tags: psychedelic, satire

Review:
Antiviral is a sci-fi/horror film from the mind of Brandon Cronenberg, David Cronenberg's son.
The film follows Syd March, a man who works for a company that harvests diseases from celebrities and then injects them into paying clients.
The new flesh here being David Cronenberg's son Brandon, who seems to have inherited his father's body-horror fixation and has used it to direct his feature-length debut Antiviral, an unnerving yet very entertaining piece of science fiction.Antiviral offers a disturbing new meaning to our culture of celebrity obsession.
Syd Marsh (Caleb Landry Jones) works for a company that specialises in injecting members of the public with diseases that have been taken from specific celebrities; you could be walking around with Madonna's chest cold if you wanted to.
His desire to make a bit of extra money on the side however, coupled with his own addictions, leads him to be injected with a disease so incurable, it becomes a matter of life and death.More a criticism of celebrity culture than an accurate vision of the future, there are moments in this film that are frankly alarming, even when compared to our present day society of Big Brother, X-Factor and Heat magazine, a world in which attaining celebrity status is the only worthwhile ambition.
In Antiviral, for instance, there are companies that have developed 'cell stakes', slabs of grey meat grown from the muscle cells of the rich and famous that people actually queue up to buy and subsequently eat for lunch, their excuse being that it makes them feel closer to those they admire.
It's moments like these that make it a hard concept to imagine, yet it's a credit to Cronenberg's direction, his cold, very clinical approach to every scene, that makes it somehow believable.
There are certainly elements that share similarities: the hospital settings of Dead Ringers, the exploration of media and addiction in Videodrome, but Antiviral needs to be viewed as a completely separate piece of cinema, one that is refreshingly unique in its approach to a topic dealt with many times before, portraying a not-so-distant future with a strange, yet very absorbing bleakness.
It's a well-directed film with an extraordinary performance at its centre that serves as a perfect showcase for the brilliance of both Brandon Cronenberg and Caleb Landry Jones; let's hope their collaborations continue.http://monsters-and-ink.blogspot.co.uk/.
Brandon Cronenberg's auspicious debut feature is a visually stunning, compelling science fiction story that asks the question, "How far would you go to own a piece of your celebrity crush?" Directing from his own script, the young Canadian takes a decidedly cynical view of the cult of personality in this sci-fi paradigm shift -- "Antiviral" isn't necessarily showing us what will be in the future but what could be now as it appears to be set more in the present day.The film opens in a pristine medical facility where a desperate young man, Edward Porris (Douglas Smith in a too-brief but important establishing role), is about to be injected with a live virus taken from his favorite superstar.
22-year-old Caleb Landry Jones (Sean Cassidy/Banshee of "X-Men: First Class") is in virtually every shot, undergoing a total physical and emotional transformation that's almost painful to watch, reminiscent of the award-winning performance turned in by Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia." His masterful characterization of Syd's downward spiral is breathtaking and central to the picture's potency.
Every frame is like a painting, with lush cinematography and score that can only be effective when director, DP, composer, editor, and the entire visual team work in lockstep, resulting in a brilliant vision executed with highly disciplined precision.Much of March's day is set in the clinic and his home, which mirrors his workplace in its cold sterility.
The outside world is like a parallel universe, where dirt and grime cover a worn out, used landscape as if diseased itself.Cinematographer Karim Hussain ("Hobo with a Shotgun," one of my 2011 Sundance Film Festival Top 4) goes against the hand-held trend with stationary camera throughout much of the movie.
It's not without its flaws, but I give it major points for a unique, interesting concept and its sterile visual style.As a horror and sci-fi fan, I wish there were more films like Antiviral.
Antiviral seems to step out of that box.As mentioned, it isn't perfect, but a really great film for sci-fi/horror fans looking for something less cliché and more unique, something that can be hard to find within these genres today.It's a pretty low-budget film, so don't expect a ton of crazy sci-fi special effects.
Since our society is already relatively obsessed with celebrity culture, Antiviral's world feels distant, but not too far off.One issue is that the plot can feel a bit unfocused here and there.
Like Father Like Son. Syd March works for a cosmetic company that sells you a way to share the viruses and diseases your favourite celebrities have.
Beautifully done, a little slow paced, but worth it.The main character is a guy (Banshee from X-Men, now even creepier - he made a great role) who works as a technician in a company that buys and sells celebrity diseases.
There is a black market for steaks cloned from the genetic material of your favourite celebrity.The idea is great and they could have stopped here, with a boring movie about an interesting idea, but they did not.
It is a great film that fringes on horror (by showing people real horror, not something made up), but is basically a very good sci-fi movie.
If you were missing the old Cronenberg style, you're gonna love this movie.The script is very original and contains some interesting ideas.
It gave me the feeling of "something is missing here" at times - including in its ending - but all in all it was pretty impressive as a first feature-film for Brandon, both as a writer and a director (although if I compare it to Duncan Jones' Moon, the latter wins big time).
Antiviral follows the story of Syd March an employee at a clinic that sells celebrity viruses to the masses of fans desperate to feel closer to their idols.Brandon Cronenberg takes a stab at the body horror genre his father helped make famous.
The visual effects are impressively gruesome, With one nightmarish dream sequence lingering on long after the movie ends.The one point where Antiviral falls short for me is pace, each time the story picks up steam it seems to falter.
A little fat could have been trimmed, Instead of adding more and more ideas into the mix the movie could have done with honing the ones already there and using those to propel the story forward.I did enjoy the film and I very much look forward to the directors next work..
Boredom is the death of any movie, and this one will bore you to tears.'Antiviral' presents us with a celebrity obsessed near future.
Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) works for Lucas Clinic which buys viruses from celebrities to be injected into obsessed fans who are willing to pay.
A tech at one of these companies also smuggles the fresh virii out of his building by injecting himself; trouble arises when the celebrity unexpectedly dies, leaving the staffer little time to learn what went wrong before he suffers the same fate.Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) is that tech, Syd. He's got a pretty sweet gig, selling the virii he harvests to pirates who then alternately inject people with the virus (for a nice price) and grow the equivalent of steaks - really!
The obsession with celebrities, all too apparent in real life, is shown to be pretty normal in the film's fictional universe, and yet the horror of playing with the fire of fast-spreading pathogens undercuts this seeming normalcy with an almost Jones' Syd pretends to be just another hustler, but he's really as demented as his customers (and clients).
Jones plays Syd perfectly as a shady, somewhat-sullen man of little distinction; also noteworthy are Joe Pingue as Arvid (employee of the celebrity meat market), Wendy Crewson as the head of a rival pathogen company, and Malcolm McDowell, playing yet another doctor, this time with skin grafts from his favorite celebrity.Antiviral is a horror mystery, with buckets of blood and oodles of intrigue.
ANTIVIRAL is the debut film from Brandon Cronenberg, son of famous Canadian filmmaker David.
It's a gory effort with an emphasis on body horror which is odd given that in an interview I saw Cronenberg say he has no real interest in the horror genre; perhaps that's why this film feels so half-hearted as a result.The main character is a repulsive creep and the supporting cast of self-obsessed celebrities is even worse.
Now, some years later, his son, Brandon Cronenberg, is doing much the same thing.Antiviral is about a world where (believe it or not) the population can buy illnesses that have once infected the celebrity of their choosing, so they can be ill like their idol!
It's certainly a different type of film when you compare it to those other 'horror' movies of today, however, it's probably more at home with Cronenberg Senior's work back in the eighties.
While I can understand that some people would brush off the idea as 'too weird' - after all, what sane person would inject a disease into their own body just to feel close to someone?
What is supposed to happen?You come to look like the celebrity?You have a dream where the celebrity enters your life?You became a celebrity and hence can socialise?It gradually becomes most likely that you get to share a disease with your selected celebrity though I never understood the purpose of the machine or why people wanted this form of souvenir.On the black market, you can buy meat, cultured from the cells of celebrities.
Overall, its a pretty good sci-fi/horror type of film, the horror coming mainly from the theme of society and our worshiping of celebrities.Please like me on Facebook!
And if you enjoy A, B, C plots, you'll be scratching your head trying to figure out what happened.In the film, Caleb Jones plays Syd March, who works for the Lucas Clinic selling designer celebrity diseases to fans who want to experience the same illness their favorite star has endured.
"Antiviral" is another dystopian fantasy set in a world that very much resembles our own but one in which a high-tech clinic sells celebrity viruses that are readily taken up by fans seeking a new thrill; illness as sexual pleasure with an obvious AIDS metaphor.It's clear that young Cronenberg has been heavily influenced by his dad's early work, particularly "Shivers" and "Videodrome" with a little touch of "Soylent Green" thrown in for good measure but this is altogether more sophisticated than any of these and there's a nice touch of the living dead about the ashen-faced performance of Caleb Landry Jones as the Frankenstein figure who becomes his own monster as he injects more and more of the virus into his body.
Caleb Jones is absolutely perfect as the protagonist working at a corporation selling celebrity viruses to allow fans to feel close to their favourite stars by having the same viruses that they do.
Caleb Jones as Syd March has an ethereal beauty and paleness allowing him to pull off the part impeccably as does Sarah Gadon as Hannah Geist the main star on exclusive contract with the Lucas Clinic.
In this film, Caleb Landry Jones (X-MEN: FIRST CLASS) plays an employee of a clinic which sells viruses that have been in celebrities.
The acting also from Malcolm McDowell and the rest of the cast is first class.I find the idea of extreme celebrity obsession getting out of hand, do much that we will do anything to disease ourselves with viruses from their bodies, and eat flesh and meat cloned from our obsessions is both sick and scary.
Imagine if you could get anything you want, even parts if the likes of Madonna, Michael Jackson or Neldon Mandela.Only for it's aesthetic, clinical, white, clean, sharp, and empty atmosphere the movie us astonishing, and combined with the filthy ideas and red and blackish blood and black suits which disgustingly enough makes the film quite sexy.It's also interesting that it is impossible to read into the film what's up next, but many will hate this for the same reasons I was fascinated.
Syd March is a great interesting character played by Caleb Landry Jones who is the best fit for the role.
Set in the very near future where celebrity obsession has become paralyzing infection of the populace, a salesman in a virus clinic sees beyond the cloud of asphyxiating distraction and, by virtue of his own addictions and through chance of fate, is drawn into a complex mystery, that only he can solve.That being said, we'll never get to meet Hannah Geist.
Antiviral, equates these obsessions with addiction, and as each plot point turns, these themes are blended and blurred for Syd. Even when you think you have every turn and motivation figured out, Cronenberg keeps you guessing until the very end.The design and sound of this film are engrossing.
I'm a big fan of Cronenberg Sr. and the body-horror genre, but for some reason, "Antiviral" didn't quite live up to what I was hoping for in terms of plot.
It's tragic in the sense that Syd, although he's infected and has access to all of Hannah's illnesses, is no closer to "communion" with her then any other obsessed fan.I suppose I would have written the story differently and perhaps I didn't love this film because it didn't have the ending *I* wanted.
The film was directed by Brandon Cronenberg, son of director David Cronenberg.Essentially an inferior, scifi version of "Perfect Blue", "Antiviral" follows Syd March, a young man who steals viruses from celebrities and sells them on the black market.
First of all, I'd like to give my opinion on the idea - the whole premise of celebrity obsession getting to such an unhealthy level that we pay to disease ourselves with viruses from their bodies.
This is the movie that first got me infatuated with Caleb Landry Jones (which is ironic, considering the theme of this film), and the way he portrays Syd March is so perfect, it still shocks me to this day.
Plot summary: "Syd March is an employee at a clinic that sells injections of live viruses harvested from sick celebrities to obsessed fans.".
Now let's imagine that we live in a world that is basically disease free, but that for another reason people actually are willing to pay enormous amounts of money to get infected with the diseases that bring them closer to the illusions of human beings which are created and perpetuated by society as celebrities.
From the beginning his obsession with Hannah Geist seems pretty clear, but whether or not his attempts to find a cure for the disease that was killing them both remained ambiguous to me and I've seen the film a couple of times.
Brandon will probably have more success because thanks to his father the world has become more prepared to explore many of the themes introduced in this fascinating film; but I wonder what it's like living in the shadow of such an important figure, especially if you feel the need to reference their work so much and so often..
but something like Antiviral will be the type of movie where people will always want to see once they become a fan of however many films Brandon Cronenberg puts out there at the point in time when they first realize how much they enjoy what he does..
When he becomes infected with the disease that kills celebrity Hannah Geist, Syd becomes a target for collectors and rabid fans.
What the film does deal is the obsession of celebrity, and the lengths people will do to be like their favourite celebrity.Even eating the celebrity...The film is very sanitised, and Jones is wonderful, as the man who is literally carrying a disease and his physical transformation throughout the movie is quite spectacular.All in all, it does owe a lot to Cronenberg Sr., especially his early works, but it's a wonderfully bonkers concept, and it works....
The story is a bunch of people work in this weird clinic its a company that purchases Viruses and other pathogens from celebrities that get sick and for some reason the people in this film want to buy the viruses and inject them into their bodies.
but the characters were just plain stupid and demented that it made me wonder what the writer of this movie was thinking when he wrote the Script.I just didn't care for the script or the directing and as for the main character Syd all he does is spend the entire film walking around like an Old Man!,and i had no sympathy for him because i thought he was an idiot.I'm sorry but anyone who is stupid enough to inject themselves with a virus or pathogens deserves everything that happens to them.I don't feel sympathy for dumb people.
this movie just has so many dumb and weird scenes that it becomes laughable at times.there is another scene where Syd is talking with this Fat man about Viruses and the two of them ending up fighting over a VIRUS!
Syd gets beaten up by the Fat man which i thought looked so LAUGHABLE.There is another scene later in the film where we see Syd yet again walking around like an OLD MAN!.I should probably mention this happens during the WHOLE MOVIE!
This film even feels like a Soap at times because most of the time you just have people walking around!.
Also, there's a few plot twists that kept me watching all the way to a very sick ending.I think it would be more credible for extreme fans to buy celebrity fertiliser.
Syd March is a scientist whose job is to sell viruses taken from sick celebrities to sell to obsessed fans.