Parents' Guide to The Shrouds

Body-horror master David Cronenberg returns with one of his most potent movies, a paranoid, tech-based sci-fi thriller that's bold enough to deal in uncertainty and illusion. The Shrouds falls in place, thematically, with Cronenberg's most famous movies (The Fly, etc.), supporting a clear definition of what makes for good body horror—i.e., some kind of unsettling blending of organic flesh and outside technology. The movie starts strongly with the disquieting idea of being able to watch rotting corpses in their graves, then continues with the medical dismantling of Becca's body (she keeps returning to Karsh's nightmares with new body parts missing, stitches, braces, etc.).

But perhaps the movie's most relevant theme has to do with how technology warps, bends, and outright throttles human thought. The movie is full of conspiracy theories but no actual theories. Nothing can be taken as fact. Cronenberg assembles a great cast, especially Pearce, who brings a kind of weird humor to his character. The filmmaker's visual style is as familiar as ever, presenting startling imagery in a clinical and controlled manner without seeming to be particularly interested in being scary, the way you might expect a horror movie to be. At this stage, a movie as unyielding as The Shrouds probably won't win Cronenberg any new fans, but longtime acolytes will be thrilled.