eXistenZ (1999) on Netflix
R19991h 37mHorrorSci-FiThriller
Game designer Allegra Geller is shot by an assassin while demonstrating her virtual reality game. Trainee Ted Pikul escorts her to safety, and the pod holding eXistenZ's only copy is damaged.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.8/10114,739 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes74%
Trailer
Plot summary
In a near future, virtual reality games run on biotechnological game pods that plug into bio-ports, connectors surgically inserted into a player's spine. Antenna Research and Cortical Systematics are rival game companies, and a group of fanatics who call themselves Realists fights both, arguing that the games deform reality. Allegra Geller, a world-renowned game designer, demonstrates Antenna Research's newest game, eXistenZ, to a focus group. Noel Dichter, a Realist who smuggled an organic pistol past security, shoots her. Ted Pikul, a marketing trainee, brings her to safety. Geller then finds that her pod, which holds the only copy of eXistenZ, may be damaged. She asks a reluctant Pikul to accept a bio-port in his own spine so the two of them can play eXistenZ together and judge whether it still works.
Cast
- Oscar Hsuas Chinese Waiter
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about eXistenZ (1999)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The plot came about after Cronenberg interviewed Salman Rushdie for Shift magazine in 1995, while Rushdie was in hiding because of a fatwa on his life over his book The Satanic Verses. Rushdie's dilemma gave Cronenberg the idea of a fatwa against a virtual-reality game designer.
- Cronenberg deliberately avoided conventional futuristic imagery, leaving out computers, television sets and screens, and also excluding mirrors, jewellery, patterned clothing and trainers from the production design and costumes.
- Existenz was originally pitched to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but they did not green-light the film because of its complex structure. It was Cronenberg's first original script since Videodrome.
- David Cronenberg won the Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution at the Berlin International Film Festival for the film, and was also nominated there for the Golden Bear.
