The new David Cronenberg body horror film Crimes of the Future has delivered on the director's promise of multiple walkouts during its Cannes Film Festival premiere. The director reunites with frequent collaborator Viggo Mortensen, who stars as Saul Tenser, a performance artist who grows new organs inside of his body as a result of a unique disease and extracts them for the public during avant-garde productions. Although the film will release June 3 in the United States, early reviews have already praised Crimes of the Future for its unique narrative and striking visuals.

With gore through body modifications being a central part of the story's premise, the subject matter will undoubtedly not be for everyone. Cronenberg himself previously predicted that Crimes of the Future walkouts would occur within the first five minutes of the film screening at Cannes. He also cited the last 20 minutes of the film as particularly hard to watch, claiming that one individual alleged he nearly had a panic attack.

NYT journalist Kyle Buchanan (via Games Radar) was in the audience of the Crimes of the Future premiere at Cannes Film Festival, where he witnessed multiple walkouts throughout the screening, delivering on Cronenberg's promise. According to him, there were at least 15 attendees who exited the theater during the showing. Buchanan cites one scene too disturbing for one viewer in which a nearly naked man, who has had extra ears sewn onto various parts of his body, dances for nearly a minute.


The journalist also noted that audience members leave Cannes screenings all the time, whether due to scheduling issues or just a general dislike of the films. However, he observed that many of those who walked out during Crimes of the Future did so during particularly distressing moments. Despite the grotesque scenes and the numerous audience exits throughout the premiere, Cronenberg and his latest film received a six-minute standing ovation.

Although Cronenberg predicted there would be walkouts during his film, he did not appear to fear such a response. Having audience members leave the theater due to a perceived lack of quality would have been a less desirable result, but as a horror director, Cronenberg appears to have embraced these walkouts as if they were a badge of honor. With a 90% Fresh rating on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, Crimes of the Future is setting up to be a memorable if somewhat disturbing visceral experience.

Crimes Of The Future (2022)
Release Date: Jun 03, 2022