Let’s take a closer look at the man who blended horror and anatomy in a way that was previously unthinkable. David Cronenberg is a man who grew up with a journalist mother and a musician father, which meant his everyday life was steeped in knowledge and understanding of media on a deeper level. Through his childhood years he also surrounded himself with many science fiction writers (like William S. Burroughs) and horror comics. Oddly enough Cronenberg has cited one of his early influences as Bambi and Dumbo because the movies gave him a genuine feeling of terror. Cronenberg would first study sciences, but after being moved by a student film he switched to English literature at the University of Toronto. What was different about David Cronenberg’s vision was that he had plans to blend the horror techniques he had seen in films like The Creature From The Black Lagoon and early Avant Garde pictures from his childhood with his knowledge of science and more specifically, anatomy.
David Cronenberg´s career was rocky and met with much controversy right from the start. His first film Shivers was quickly deemed vulgar, disgusting, obscene, and these titles were plastered all over his movie. Featuring controversial things for the time like extensive nudity and two women kissing, you had many critics throwing their two cents in about this production. The movie was further stigmatized because one of the lead roles was played by an adult film actress. It was right upon the time of this movie’s conception that the term “body horror” was given to his work, and in what seemed like a never ending struggle to stop the movie from being banned. All of the controversy actually served to get the film a cult following.
His career may have started off rocky, but throughout the years Cronenberg would become renowned as the father of body horror with later cult classic films such as Videodrome, The Brood, Scanners, Dead Ringers, and most notably, The Fly. David Cronenberg taught us a new way to “Be afraid…be very afraid” and his is a legacy that will never be forgotten or understated, not just in the horror community, but in the film industry in general.
