Existenz (DVD) Reviews

note: also appears in part on Flixster and The Student Room David Cronenberg is best known as a creator of splatter films such as Scanners and Videodrome, which examine dissemination of the human body, whereas eXistenz is a very different beast altogether, looking at the mind and the nature of the soul. It's very different material for ...  Read the complete review

It's actually a game within a game within a game....within limitless amounts of games.....Canadian director Cronenberg has produced some fine film-food-for-thought....including Crash, and The Dead Zone. Moving on from Videodrome, (a renowned art house film of the 80's confronting and warning about the dangers of television), he now does the same ...  Read the complete review

From David Cronenberg, the director of "The Fly", "The Dead Zone", "Videodrome" and "Scanners", comes this mind-cracking sci-fi weirdness. Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), world-renowned computer game designer, has just created and is about to release a whole new gaming experience known as ...  Read the complete review

I was sitting down with my fiance dave yesterday and he was taking a look through my DVD collection as we are moving into our new house soon and he was trying to tell me that not all my DVD’s could be bought. Of course I told him they were all coming and then he pointed out eXistenZ that he thought looked rubbish. I told him to give it a go so ...  Read the complete review

Apparently eXistenz is a 'daring new organic game system which, when downloaded into humans, accesses their central nervous systems'. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a 'gaming goddess' whose latest games system, eXistenZ, 'taps so deeply into its users' fear and desires that it blurs the boundries between reality and ...  Read the complete review

I recently watched this film for the second time, having watched it at the cinema when it was released. Since then I have wanted to watch it again, as I remembered being particularly confused by it. My hope for clarity was realised by my second viewing, at least to the extent that I understand the plot and could identify what was going on ...  Read the complete review

I caught this film when it was shown on BBC2 the other week. I've gotta say, I didn't know what to expect. But I really enjoyed this film. The basic plot is that it is the near future. And people have these Bio-Ports implanted into their backs so they can plug into eXistenZ, a kind of super advanced virtual reality game. ...  Read the complete review

WARNING!!!! PLOT SPOILER ALERT!!!!! When the final credits roll and you turn the tv off, you, like many others who have seen this will probably be dumbfounded over what you have just witnessed. It?s essentially sci-fi horror, but yet it?s a lot more. It?s a thinker, a curious slow burner that will eat away at you long after you finish ...  Read the complete review

David Cronenberg has long been acknowledged a master of the macabre, with a plethora of excellent films to his name, from classic horror films from the seventies and early-to-mid eighties (‘Scanners’, ‘The Brood’) to his later excursions into science fiction (‘The Fly’), the fantastic (‘Naked Lunch’) ...  Read the complete review

Although this film has been looked over by many people and film critics I personally think that it's a good original film. And, although quite confusing on times it's the first real film that tries to deal with computer games in an innovative way. Combining new technologies while keeping good human characters. The film takes ...  Read the complete review

In a world where mobile phones are made out of glowing pink plastic and guns are made from the remains of exotic fish, it comes as no surprise when you discover that computer games have evolved into creamy rubbery blobs of .... stuff. They stick into a hole in your spine (made by using a souped-up harpoon gun of some sorts) via a slimy placenta. ...  Read the complete review

Just what IS this life we are living? IS it life? Really? How can you tell? Personally I thought this film was very effective. Not previously having heard anything about it, I sat down with an open mind and let myself become completely involved in the story line. A couple of hours later as I ambled dazed from the cinema, I found myself ...  Read the complete review

David Cronenberg has to be most famous for freaky films. From Videodrome to Scanners, his films have all left the audience dazed, bewildered and horrified all at the same time. From the exploding heads to things coming out of human bodies (where they shouldn't), eXistenZ is no different. I must admit that the film did take a ...  Read the complete review

After hearing so many good things about eXistenZ (stupid bloody name by the way!), I was very much looking forward to seeing what was supposed to be a wonderful Sci-Fi movie, and some even went as far as saying it is “a matrix beater” and many more superlatives describing how good this film was, and why I should own it! That is ...  Read the complete review

I'm confused... This confused me... I'm still confused... I don't understand AT ALL... Now I'm really confused... I didn't like this film at all. I'm not generally into the whole science fiction/fantasy type film, but ended up watching this for some reason or other. It just didn't make any sense at ...  Read the complete review

Virtual reality has advanced in leaps and bounds over the past few years, evolving from a quaint theory expounded in a few science fiction pot-boilers to something very much real, and in the real world from a basically useless form of rather poor-quality game playing into a diverse subject area encompassing advanced entertainment systems as well ...  Read the complete review

Did anyone think that director extraodinaire, David Cronenberg, could get any weirder after Crash, didn’t think so! Somehow, however, he manages to break the boundaries of virtual reality with eXistenZ as you are sent off into a whirlpool of weird. eXistenZ is the new gaming experience from designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason ...  Read the complete review

My general opinion of Cronenberg: you seen one, you've seen them all. You can recognise his films with your back turned at forty paces, what with his general obsession with all things body-horror. Saying that, Cronenberg's nearly always worth a watch, and I nearly always do. Happily, eXistenZ was a better film than I thought it'd be. ...  Read the complete review

In the future video games are played on organic game pod’s which are not connected to the mains but are plugged directly into the player themselves via a hole at the base of the spine called a bioport, which transports the player into a virtual world indistinguishable from reality. When top games designer Allegra Gellar played by Jennifer ...  Read the complete review

Set a little time in the future, in the world of Existenz to play a 'computer' game you now need a bioport with which to interface with a game pod, a being that interacts with your spinal core and nervous system to produce the ultimate in 'virtual reality'. At the beta test of the latest system & game the designer comes under ...  Read the complete review