Crimes of the Future

What’s it about?

Crimes of the Future is a sci-fi body horror film by David Cronenberg. It is set in a future where most humans no longer feel pain or suffer from infection, and they seem to be evolving in mysterious ways.

Paul Tenser and Caprice, famous performance artists, remove abnormal organs before a live audience. A man who can eat plastic approaches Tenser with an idea for a performance: He wants them to do an autopsy on his murdered 8-year-old son.

The facts

• Director: David Cronenberg
• Runtime: 107 minutes
• Unrelated to David Cronenberg’s other film of the same name

Why did it get this rating?

Graphic violence and graphic content that may disturb

The film contains extensive body horror. Surgery and cutting is used during art performances and by random characters on the street. This ranges from unusual machines connecting to the human body to scenes of surgery, body modification, images of organs and self-harm.

There are regular moments in the film where people are cut by others in front of an audience, resulting in bloody flesh wounds, often in graphic close-ups.

Sexual themes and nudity

The film sexualises body horror. Many of the characters in the film get aroused from cutting other people and being cut. These scenes are not cruel, as the characters involved do not feel pain or suffer, and the acts are consensual. Overall though, the effect is highly disturbing and the visual effects are often repulsive.

The film contains sexualised female breast nudity and there is also a scene with a naked body of a dead male child.