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Dead Ringers (1988)

Dead Ringers (1988)

Identical twins spiral into a bloody identity crisis in Cronenberg’s body-horror cult film

7.5

Movie

Canada
English
Horror, Thriller
1988
DAVID CRONENBERG
Barbara Gordon, Bob Bainborough, Damir Andrei
115 min

TLDR

You could release this movie now and it would still shock audiences with its audacity.

What it's about

Twin doctors Elliot and Beverly (Jeremy Irons) have always been close. However, their relationship is tested when they meet the beautiful Claire (Geneviève Bujold) who challenges their inseparability.

The take

As a woman, it’s risky enough to trust a male gynecologist, but to have him seduce, manipulate, and experiment on you? That’s a horror all on its own, but Dead Ringers operates on several levels beyond the political. It’s also psychological and sexual, and because this is a Cronenberg film, it’s done with an unsettling amount of gore. But perhaps the most impressive part of Dead Ringers (apart from Irons convincingly playing twins with just a deft change of inflection, of course) is the eroticism it contains. This element seems to be lacking in many films nowadays, or forced in a way that feels even more uncomfortable than gratuitous sex. The fact that this Reagan-era movie was and continues to be subversive says a lot about how potent it is, and how unfortunately slow we’ve been to tolerate sensuality in film.

What stands out

Jeremy Irons convincingly playing twins while looking exactly the same never fails to impress, technological advances be damned.

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