The Cronenberg Crawl: Beth Watches Oeuvres from the King of Body Horror Until She is Blinded/Driven Insane

In our quest to plunge through the canon of some of the most celebrated and popular directors today, twisted sister Beth has been in a contest with herself to see how many David Cronenberg movies she can watch and review in one summer. Whether or not she can complete this task without suffering permanent brain damage or attracting the attention of terrorist watch groups remains to be seen.

For the uninitiated: who is David Cronenberg? This creepy son of a bitch is a Canadian director who, according to his gushing IMDB page, is also known as the "King of Venereal Horror" and the "Baron of Blood." We here at Beth and Louise Hate Movies don't know how many people have to call you the "Baron of Blood" until it is officially one of your epithets, but there you are. After a promising start in cult horror films in the late 70's (Rabid and They Came from Within), he moved on to bigger and better head explosions with more mainstream movies like Scanners, Videodrome, The Dead Zone, and The Fly.

"But Beth and Louise," you might be saying, "why would you watch every movie made by a man who was famous for producing hideous cult movies?" Because we're terrible people, that's why. But more importantly, because you might know David Cronenberg from some of the OA History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), A Dangerous Method (2011) and Cosmopolis (2012).
scar bait that he's made in recent years. From the mid to late 80's until now, Cronenberg's films have fared quite well at Cannes and Berlin and have picked up a number of Oscar nominations. You might know him from his more recent productions, such as

So there you are. Like Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi, Cronenberg has followed a well-worn path from sordid B-cinema to mainstream glory, and has somehow never stopped giving everyone the willies every time he switches on a camera.

We have personally had an eye on Cronenberg ever since we stumbled across The Fly in high school (that makes for one hell of a gnarly popcorn movie, if you're interested), so we're proud to say that Beth will embrace this coming exercise with appropriate masochism and aplomb. You may not want to hang out with her when this is over, though. Stay tuned.

Keep smiling, Beth, you creepy freak.