Program Note
Beginning with Shivers (1975), the series of films David Cronenberg released throughout the 1970s and '80s can be seen as an index of the defining elements of body horror. In modern society, the body becomes a complex network where desire, anxiety, identity, psyche, technology, and capital intertwine with increasing intensity. From the grotesquely mutating zombie body, to the abject as unproductive waste, to flesh and organs merging with mechanical devices, to the psychological states affected by physical transformation—Cronenberg’s films chart a singular trajectory in which the body serves as a conduit connecting horror with a wide array of subgenres. Dead Ringers, based on a true story from 1975, centers on a pair of twin brothers and the woman they both share, forming an unstable triangle. As the film progresses, Elliot and Beverly undergo contradictory phases—identification and separation, overlap and fusion. By pushing the brothers’ inability to exist as fully independent beings to the extreme, the film probes the unstable relationships between identity, body, and psyche, ultimately challenging conventional notions of self and wholeness. (Jin PARK)