Denis Villeneuve has been keeping himself very busy. At the Toronto International Film Festival last year, it wasn’t enough that he had the tightly wound Prisoners making its world premiere, but he managed to have another film finished in time to double dip at TIFF. Though if you end up seeing Enemy (which only got its theatrical release this month) it will be easier to wrap your head around Villeneuve’s ability to pull that off. Smaller in scale, lighter on actors and directing a more local crew, Enemy has all the ingredients of an indie flick. It really feels more like an experimental visual monograph on delusion and paranoia than just your run of the mill film, which goes from point A to point B, ticking all the boxes in the screenwriting rulebook along the way. No, this is a film that crawls out of all boxes and weaves its way around a singular phenomenon with no interest in really going anywhere. And that’s okay.

The opening sequence of the film perfectly sets the tone for the kind of absurdity, confusion and intensity that’s prevalent throughout this picture. A bearded man (Jake Gyllenhaal) walks into an underground strip club where male eyes gaze at a dancing naked woman. A tray appears covered by a silver lid and the woman lifts the top to reveal the hors d’oeuvre: a hairy tarantula. The bearded man stares at the creepy crawler with acute intrigue, almost welcoming him. Out of this surreal scenario, we are brought into the reality of this man’s life. His name is Adam and he is a History professor at the University of Toronto. His life is a web of boredom: repeating the same things in his courses, riding the stuffy public transportation system, going back to his barren apartment and sleepwalking through his relationship with Mary (Melanie Laurent). Then, in one of the film’s lighter moments, a colleague asks Adam if he’s a movie guy and recommends that he watch a movie called “When There’s A Will, There’s A Way.” Adam finds the movie in a local video store and watches it one night, but when he has dreams of a particular sequence from the movie, he wakes up in the middle of the night and plays the sequence again. This time around, he notices a person in the scene who looks exactly like himself. After some digging, this turns out to be actor Anthony Saint Claire (Gyllenhaal) and it’s obsession at first sight.

Villeneuve manages to create something truly unique with Enemy because, as mentioned, no conventional rules guide this movie. Rather than progressing in a linear, plot-driven manner, the story slowly fades into the distance to make way for an aimless type of suspense, which keeps the viewer glued to Adam’s possessed idea of meeting Anthony. Gyllenhaal commands the screen, a key factor because he’s in practically every frame of the film. As the quirky, fidgety and mild-mannered professor Adam, Gyllenhaal creates the kind of sympathetic character pitiable from a distance but too strange to befriend. And while Adam looks like he couldn’t hurt a fly, Anthony is the confident and cocky B-movie actor who gives off the impression that he tortured loads of flies as a kid. When the two worlds collide, the suspense begins to reach boiling point and what looked like a thriller morphs into something much, much stranger.

Despite some of its more outlandish moments, and putting aside the stinging sensation of watching a film where virtually none of the characters feel fleshed out, Enemy‘s mood is what makes it worth seeing. Thanks to its experimental nature, by the time those (slightly demented) yellow closing credits roll, there’s an undeniable aftereffect of the experience. What sort of experience? An experience that Villeneuve inflicts on us through the language of cinema, and that was well transcribed from the film’s basis, Jose Saramaga’s novel The Double. Watching Enemy, the influence from a few masters is noticeable and very much welcomed: master of the macabre David Lynch, master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock and master of the bodily absurd David Cronenberg. The film’s frantic editing–the cuts often synchronized perfectly with the eerie score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans (seriously, these guys need to be working way more than they are)–coupled with an oozing yellow color tone secreting from the feverish camera angles, all work together to build an atmosphere that is oddly satisfying in and of itself. Oh, and how could I forget all those wonderfully creative spider motifs? Arachnophobes take this as a warning, even with no spiders on-screen their presence is often felt, making for a decidedly creepy tingling sensation.

Enemy is worth your time if you’re the sort of movie-goer who doesn’t mind being forced into slight discomfort for a little mind prodding. But you’d have to be willing to forgive its disembodied approach to narrative and swap character development for visual development because you won’t get both. Ultimately, Villeneuve creates an absorbing experimental movie which manages to linger long after the credits roll despite the missed opportunity of digging deeper into the concept of doppelgängers. In many ways it’s a fitting companion piece to Prisoners, because above all else it proves that Villeneuve is becoming a natural for unsettling the mood and creepily crawling under your skin.

Enemy trailer

Antiviral is a high-concept sci-fi film debut from Brandon Cronenberg, son of legendary director David Cronenberg. It is not completely far-fetched to imagine a future celebrity obsessed society where fans receive a virus that their idol has in order to feel closer to them, which is why the film is so creepy. Unfortunately, the signs of a first-time director are present when several of the same shots are repetitively used and by the time the third act rolls around, most of the enthusiasm wears off. Antiviral has enough of style and dazzling imagery that it could possibly win over certain fans of the genre, despite its various setbacks.

From the very opening shot of a man sitting behind a giant billboard of a female model, Antiviral makes it abundantly clear what the film is about; society’s obsession with celebrities. The man in the opening shot is Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones), a technician at the Lucas Clinic who specializes in injecting viruses from celebrities into clients who wish to come closer to their idol. Inside the clinic is a lobby full of clients who hide behind the latest gossip magazine while the latest celebrity chatter airs on the television. And if that was not enough, one can literally get a taste of their obsession at a meat market, where cuts of steak are made up from cultivated cells of celebrities.

With each passing day Syd’s physical condition seems to worsen and everyone around him starts to notice his apparent sickness. But what they do not know is that he is smuggling viruses from the clinic using his own body as the host. After stealing some lab equipment from work, he is able to then remove the copy-protection of the virus which allows him to sell the virus on the black market. Because the market is so fierce, he is in real danger when the wrong people find out his secrets.

Even though Antiviral takes place in a slightly futuristic time period, the truly terrifying part is that it could actually happen someday, especially considering the rise in social media which provides us with constant updates on the celebrities we follow. A rumor started on Twitter can quickly spread to a room full of gossip in the matter of seconds. Rumor spreading is touched on in the film when colleagues discuss rumors they hear from the media but then add their own wild spin on the topic they hear from unreliable sources.

Much of the weight of the film rests on the shoulders of Caleb Landry Jones as he is in almost every frame. The role was physically demanding as he portrays a man who is violently ill from the beginning and by the end is practically on his death bed. For the most part he does a great job with what is required of him. After all, it is not his fault that the film gets repetitive by having him appear in the same state the entire time.

Antiviral falls flat once the initial concept wears off, which is a shame because there were flashes of brilliance at certain moments. The first two acts fly by while the third drags on, mainly because we have to watch the lead stumble around with overwhelming sickness a few too many times. Still, Antiviral is a commendable first outing for the young Cronenberg, even if it is far from flawless. We currently live in a society where we figuratively feed off our celebrities, so Cronenberg’s portrayal of a society that literally feeds off them is frightening yet not unimaginable.

David Cronenberg’s son Brandon is set to release his debut feature Antiviral and now, after announcing it will play at the Toronto International Film Festival, a trailer has been put online. The film, which clearly shows David Cronenberg’s love for body horror running through the family, revolves around a man (Caleb Landry-Jones) working for a company who inject paying customers with the same viruses as famous celebrities. Once Jones injects himself with a virus that turns out to be lethal, it looks like all hell breaks loose.

The trailer definitely makes a big impression. Using the film’s sound mix to create an abrasive soundtrack (similar to the trailer for A Serious Man), the trailer takes full advantage of the squirm-inducing aspects of its premise. The word from Cannes was mixed, but the trailer makes this look like one to watch. Antiviral will have its North American premiere at TIFF in September before its theatrical release.

Watch the official trailer for Antiviral: