eXistenZ

eXistenZ (1999) is about a game played through a connection plugged into the player's spine. Allegra Geller is a famous games designer. An assassination is attempted at the launch of her new game. Escaping, she takes a security guard with her. The only copy of the game may be damaged and the only way to check is to go inside it. The consoles are biological; they resemble flesh, they breathe, and they connect to a person by an umbilical cord. The connection is a port opened at the base of the spine. Inside, the game looks like the real world. Then it turns strange: characters will not move until certain lines are said, and some cannot step outside their script. At some point they enter another game inside the game. The question is which layer you are in and how you would know. It is not answered. Cronenberg's usual interest is here: technology enters the body and changes it. Even the gun is organic, built from bone and firing teeth. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law star. It came out the same year as The Matrix and was overshadowed; the two ask a similar question in completely different ways. Cronenberg said the idea came from an interview he did with Salman Rushdie and from the death sentence pronounced against the writer. The effects are practical and intended to disgust. It runs 97 minutes. Good for: science fiction, Cronenberg, and body horror. Less good for: some scenes are nauseating and the film clarifies no answer.