Crimes of the Future (1970)

Crimes of the Future details the wanderings of Tripod (Mlodzik), sometime director of a dermatological clinic called the House of Skin, who is searching for his mentor, the mad ... See full summary »

Director:

David Cronenberg

Writer:

David Cronenberg

Stars:

Ronald Mlodzik, Jon Lidolt, Tania Zolty

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ronald Mlodzik	...	Adrian Tripod
Jon Lidolt
Tania Zolty
Paul Mulholland
Jack Messinger
Iain Ewing
William Haslam
Raymond Woodley	...	(as Ray Woodley)
Stefan Czernecki
Rafe Macpherson
Willem Poolman
Don Owen
Udo Kasemets
Bruce Martin
Brian Linehan

Storyline

Crimes of the Future details the wanderings of Tripod (Mlodzik), sometime director of a dermatological clinic called the House of Skin, who is searching for his mentor, the mad dermatologist Antoine Rouge. Rouge has disappeared following a catastrophic plague resulting from cosmetic products, which has killed the entire population of sexually mature women. Tripod joins a succession of organisations including Metaphysical Import-Export and the Oceanic Podiatry Group, and meets various individuals and groups of men who are trying to adjust themselves to a defeminized world. One man parodies childbirth by continually growing new organs which are removed from his body. Eventually Tripod comes upon a group of paedophiles which is holding a 5 year-old girl, and they urge him to mate with her. He senses the presence of Antoine Rouge.

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Plot Keywords:

1990s | year 1997 | plague | cross dressing | male to female cross dressing | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 August 1984 (USA)

Also Known As:

Crimes of the Future

Filming Locations:

Ontario, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$20,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Emergent Films Ltd.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

63 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film takes place in 1997.

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Connections

Referenced in The Directors: The Films of David Cronenberg (1999)

User Reviews

Unremarkable student film.

I'd like to preface this review by saying I'm a big fan of Cronenberg and have seen and enjoyed many of his films (M. Butterfly, Eastern Promises, History of Violence, eXistenZ, Videodrome, etc.). With that out of the way, this movie does not, in any sense, stand up to any of his later work -- poor acting, ridiculously drawn out scenes that do nothing to advance the plot, similar sequences needlessly repeated 3 or 4 times, pretentious psychobabble narration, and, to top it off, the movie is shot entirely on a university campus with a budget of what I'd estimate to be less than 5 dollars.

Although the movie is short at 70 minutes, very little actually happens. The length and sparseness of the scenes seem to betray that Cronenberg was desperately trying to fill out time by stringing footage together -- one scene that stands out in my mind involves an unnamed character repeatedly removing and replacing socks and underwear from a leather bag for no apparent reason.

If this movie wasn't directed, written, and edited by Cronenberg, whose later work truly is stellar, it would have certainly been forgotten as a standard or even totally sub par student film.