Latest news with #TheShrouds
ABC News
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
David Cronenberg made The Shrouds as a way to process the grief over his wife's death
Body horror is having a moment, while its dad has a phone in front of his face. The gushing critical and cultural success of The Substance — the first body horror nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars — is just the tip of a resurgence, following the likes of Fresh, A Different Man, Infinity Pool, Malignant and Palme d'Or winner Titane. Fast Facts about The Shrouds What: Necrophilic-leaning tech CEO misses his dead wife. Starring: Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce Directed by: David Cronenberg Where: In cinemas now Likely to make you feel: Unsettled and cold (whether that's positive will depend on you) The biggest signifier of the genre's resurgence, though, was 2022's Crimes of The Future, the long-awaited return to body horror from David Cronenburg — the man who defined the genre in the 70s and 80s with The Fly, Videodrome and Scanners among others. Despite Crime's acclaim, Cronenberg has again shifted away from body horror with his follow-up The Shrouds, a relatively restrained and cold drama — despite a crazed premise. Even if it's not filled with the squelches and screams of a body keeping, ignoring or sublimating to the score, it will leave you deeply affected — if you can accept its stilted dialogue and convoluted plot as purposeful. The Shrouds follows Karsh (Vincent Cassel), a grieving widow who founded GraveTech — a cemetery that offers grievers a live-streamed image of their loved ones' decomposing corpse, viewable in 3D and 8K from a tombstone screen, after logging in via an app. GraveTech is a nascent tech start-up, with only a dozen or so clients, and the Toronto graveyard doubling as a showroom. At its centre is a sleek restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows, resembling an austere contemporary art gallery with outdoor activations. At the film's beginning, Karsh takes a blind date there and, after a subdued lunch, shows her the live footage of his late wife Becca's (Diane Kruger) skeleton while they stand before her grave, calling it "digital penetration". She's repulsed and soon leaves. But before she does, she can't help but revert her gaze to his stream, remarking how the footage — a high-tech shroud over the body, which renders corpses as though floating through space — is somewhat beautiful. "It has drained away the fluid of grief that was drowning me," says Karsh. "That was killing me." Not exactly first date material — and neither is The Shrouds, though there's romance hiding deep within. When the cemetery is vandalised, Karsh, Becca's sister Terry (also Kruger) and Terry's ex-husband Maury (Guy Pearce) are consumed by conspiracies, investigating whether strange growths on Becca's skeleton suggest a medical cover-up or interference from China, Russia or some other shadowy force. Despite the premise, Cronenberg bills The Shrouds as his most personal work ever. Now 82, he wrote the screenplay after his long-term wife, the filmmaker Carolyn Zeifman, died in 2017. With short white hair and a gangly intensity, Karsh is clearly a proxy for Cronenberg. It's also clear that Karsh is consumed by grief — and it often emerges via a desire for Becca's body, whether looking at her skeleton, her identical sister, or through dreams where Becca appears naked, increasingly scarred and amputated by surgeries. But Karsh's necrophilic impulses are at odds with The Shrouds' sense of cleanliness: It's hard to imagine him or the film with dirt under their nails, let alone digging through the earth. This is a deeply clinical visual world, far removed from the visceral sounds and throbbing violence of, say, his 1999 film Existenz. There's a tech-world cleanliness to Karsh's life, which is designed to be as frictionless as possible — from his nondescript wardrobe, to his self-driving Tesla, to his AI personal assistant Hunny (also voiced by Kruger). Together with the production designer Carol Spier, cinematographer Douglas Koch creates a pristine Toronto closer to the quiet luxury sheen of Succession than any of Cronenberg's more surreal works. It approaches blandness, but that seems to be the point, given The Shrouds is fixated on screens. Where most filmmakers try to avoid shooting characters staring at their phones or at least explore different ways to shoot, Cronenberg has gone verité when it comes to how often Karsh is on a laptop, phone or tablet. Not only are there several elongated scenes where Karsh talks with Hunny — who is as visually soulless as a Metaverse avatar — but we're often shown footage on iPhones, with Koch holding the frame on a hand holding the screen. The videos shown are, true-to-life, often poorly shot, with ugly or obstructive angles of scenes, where faces are cut off in favour of their torso. It'll be followed by a technically wonderful shot, with gorgeous lighting and framing, but of a self-driving Tesla, no life present. Dialogue, too, is ceaseless and often stilted — given Pearce, Cassel and Kruger's previous work, it's hard to believe they weren't encouraged into jarring, awkward line reads. Combined, the janky, occasionally ugly elements of The Shrouds give the film its own dream-like atmosphere, both banal and deeply strange. If The Shrouds was a debut film, it might be hard to give it so much grace, and many people won't have the patience to, finding it too austere and removed for a film about grief. But Cronenberg could have easily created a visceral, violent body horror about grief. Instead, late into his career, he's making something much more daring. By sitting in the visual horror of a tech-sanitised world, where texture and substance is erased in favour of ease, The Shrouds has a technical unease to it, as if something is missing. Cronenberg recently said he "lost the will to make movies" after Zeifman died. And while he proved that he could create an excellent return-to-form just two years ago with Crimes of The Future, nothing quite works here. That might make it one of the most quietly profound films about grief he could make.
Metro
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
'Expansively unsettling' and deeply personal horror film finally released in UK
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video David Cronenberg's latest film The Shrouds is here after being released in the US months prior – and it has been described as 'horrific' and 'fearless.' The revered director – best known for Crash, The Fly, Dead Ringers, and many other genre films – explores death and grief to devastating effect following the story of Karsh (Vincent Cassel), a creative entrepreneur who lost his wife Becca (Diane Kruger). He developed a technology known as The Shrouds, which allows users to monitor a deceased person's body as it decomposes via an app called GraveTech. After graves are destroyed in a GraveTech cemetery, including Becca's, Karsh begins to question if her death was part of a larger conspiracy as he investigates the attack. It has proved to be a deeply personal project for Cronenberg, inspired by his wife, Carolyn Cronenberg, who died of cancer at age 67 in 2017. After being released in the US back in April, the film has finally arrived in the UK as of today – but be warned, it has been hailed 'expansively unsettling' and 'hollowing.' It holds a 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics' consensus reading: 'Ruminating on the love within loss, The Shrouds is a personal and peculiar examination of grief by director David Cronenberg.' In their review, Empire wrote: 'It's a hypnotic descent into the darkness of grief, punctuated by perverse Cronenbergian pleasures.' The Washington Post said The Shrouds 'throbs with raw, human, horrific honesty', while the San Jose Mercury pondered 'How lucky we are to have this boundary pusher still thinking up such bold and provocative films.' Globe and Mail boldly stated: 'With The Shrouds, the filmmaker — not only one of Canada's greatest creations, but cinema's, too — has delivered what might be his career-defining masterpiece.' The Ringer heaped praise on Cronenberg, adding: 'Like 2022's superb Crimes of the Future, The Shrouds serves as a reminder that, at 81 years old, Cronenberg is still one of the world's great filmmakers: bold, uncompromising, clever, and fearless.' Speaking to Variety, Cronenberg explained how he developed the concept of The Shrouds and how the film was almost a Netflix series. 'It was pre-pandemic. I went to L.A. to pitch it to Netflix. At that point, it was a well-formed idea, but it wasn't a script yet,' he revealed. 'The people I talked to there were very receptive, and Netflix gave me the OK to start writing what they call the prototype, which was the first episode of what was then going to be a series. 'And then they liked that enough to tell me to go ahead and write the second episode. After that, they decided not to go forward for various reasons.' More Trending Despite the subject matter of the film and its inspiration, the History of Violence director said he 'did not experience any catharsis' making it, describing grief as 'forever.' 'I don't really think of art as therapy. I don't think it works that way,' he continued. 'If you're an artist, everything you make, you work out of your life experience, no matter what that is. Whether you're rehashing something from your distant past or your present circumstances, there's always creative energy that can be mined from your life. ' The Shrouds is in cinemas now . Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Jurassic World Rebirth leaves fans with clenched stomachs after 'genuinely tense' film debuts MORE: Eagerly anticipated horror's producer explains why '0.0 percent watchable' film flopped MORE: Horror fans 'terrified' after disturbing VHS recordings appear in US towns
The Advertiser
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
Cronenberg might be the king of shock but this left me a little cold
The Shrouds MA15+, 119 minutes 3 stars Be warned: this is not a film for all tastes. Canadian writer-director David Cronenberg, now in his 80s, has become indelibly associated with body horror - where the physical form is mutilated, infected, or otherwise treated badly. He's occasionally dabbled in somewhat more conventional fare but it's things like the exploding heads in Scanners and the grotesque transformation in The Fly that spring to mind when his name is mentioned. This film is no exception. The Shrouds has a poignant origin. Cronenberg's wife of more than 40 years, Carolyn, died several years ago from cancer at the age of 66 and he poured some of his grief and devastation into this film. But it's by no means a sentimental wallow. Like many Cronenberg films, it is cool and concerned with ideas as well as characters and story, perhaps easier to admire and think about and discuss than enjoy. Karsh (played by Vincent Cassel, styled to look rather like Cronenberg), a former industrial filmmaker, now has a restaurant, the unique selling point of which is that it's in a cemetery he runs. But it's not just any cemetery. When his wife Becca (Diane Kruger) died a few years earlier from cancer, the grief-stricken Karsh invented Gravetech. It's a technology allowing people to monitor the decay of their deceased loved ones in their graves via specially devised shrouds in which they are contained. The 3D images are live and interactive. It's certainly one way of maintaining a connection with a loved one. Karsh has a grave beside his wife's for when his time comes (I don't think mention is made of who might monitor that). Not surprisingly, this invention has been controversial and makes some uncomfortable. However, people have taken it up and national and international expansion plans are in progress. There's an awkwardly funny scene where Karsh demonstrates Gravetech to a woman while on a blind date their common dentist arranged. She is not seen again. While his dating conversation might need work, Karsh does eventually meet someone, Soo-Yin (Sandrine Holt). She's blind, meaning she can't see the decaying corpses, which might help. Besides monitoring his wife's decay on Gravetech, and conversing with the AI avatar Hunny (voiced by Kruger), Karsh also maintains a connection of sorts through his friendship with Becca's identical sister, Terry (Diane Kruger). His subconscious is haunted by dreams in which Becca comes home to him disfigured and depleted from cancer treatments administered by her oncologist (who's also her ex-lover). There's some very Cronenbergian imagery here. One night, some of the graves including his wife's are vandalised and hackers disrupt the network so the graves cannot be viewed. Both for business and personal reasons, Karsh wants to find out who did this. He calls on Terry's ex-husband Maury (Guy Pearce), who had coded the system's security, to investigate. The character relationships are a bit complicated to unravel and some of the dialogue Cronenberg has written to clarify this comes off as a bit clumsy. Still, it does the job. While Cronenberg is associated with horror, a lot of the time is spent, here as elsewhere, with characters talking, often in subdued fashion. Patience and attention are required. Having begun with a science fiction/technology premise permeated by grief and loss, the film moves into conspiracy territory as Maury and Karsh look into the damage that's been done. Who's behind the sabotage and vandalism? What are the strange protrusions that are manifesting themselves on the corpses? It's intellectually interesting but a little emotionally arid, despite the film's very personal inspiration. Cronenberg to me is rather a cold and distant filmmaker, like the late Stanley Kubrick. But while Kubrick put his characters into a petri dish and observed them through a microscope, Cronenberg is more likely to dissect them. That said, it's impressive that Cronenberg has been able to maintain a long career mostly making original and provocative movies. The Shrouds MA15+, 119 minutes 3 stars Be warned: this is not a film for all tastes. Canadian writer-director David Cronenberg, now in his 80s, has become indelibly associated with body horror - where the physical form is mutilated, infected, or otherwise treated badly. He's occasionally dabbled in somewhat more conventional fare but it's things like the exploding heads in Scanners and the grotesque transformation in The Fly that spring to mind when his name is mentioned. This film is no exception. The Shrouds has a poignant origin. Cronenberg's wife of more than 40 years, Carolyn, died several years ago from cancer at the age of 66 and he poured some of his grief and devastation into this film. But it's by no means a sentimental wallow. Like many Cronenberg films, it is cool and concerned with ideas as well as characters and story, perhaps easier to admire and think about and discuss than enjoy. Karsh (played by Vincent Cassel, styled to look rather like Cronenberg), a former industrial filmmaker, now has a restaurant, the unique selling point of which is that it's in a cemetery he runs. But it's not just any cemetery. When his wife Becca (Diane Kruger) died a few years earlier from cancer, the grief-stricken Karsh invented Gravetech. It's a technology allowing people to monitor the decay of their deceased loved ones in their graves via specially devised shrouds in which they are contained. The 3D images are live and interactive. It's certainly one way of maintaining a connection with a loved one. Karsh has a grave beside his wife's for when his time comes (I don't think mention is made of who might monitor that). Not surprisingly, this invention has been controversial and makes some uncomfortable. However, people have taken it up and national and international expansion plans are in progress. There's an awkwardly funny scene where Karsh demonstrates Gravetech to a woman while on a blind date their common dentist arranged. She is not seen again. While his dating conversation might need work, Karsh does eventually meet someone, Soo-Yin (Sandrine Holt). She's blind, meaning she can't see the decaying corpses, which might help. Besides monitoring his wife's decay on Gravetech, and conversing with the AI avatar Hunny (voiced by Kruger), Karsh also maintains a connection of sorts through his friendship with Becca's identical sister, Terry (Diane Kruger). His subconscious is haunted by dreams in which Becca comes home to him disfigured and depleted from cancer treatments administered by her oncologist (who's also her ex-lover). There's some very Cronenbergian imagery here. One night, some of the graves including his wife's are vandalised and hackers disrupt the network so the graves cannot be viewed. Both for business and personal reasons, Karsh wants to find out who did this. He calls on Terry's ex-husband Maury (Guy Pearce), who had coded the system's security, to investigate. The character relationships are a bit complicated to unravel and some of the dialogue Cronenberg has written to clarify this comes off as a bit clumsy. Still, it does the job. While Cronenberg is associated with horror, a lot of the time is spent, here as elsewhere, with characters talking, often in subdued fashion. Patience and attention are required. Having begun with a science fiction/technology premise permeated by grief and loss, the film moves into conspiracy territory as Maury and Karsh look into the damage that's been done. Who's behind the sabotage and vandalism? What are the strange protrusions that are manifesting themselves on the corpses? It's intellectually interesting but a little emotionally arid, despite the film's very personal inspiration. Cronenberg to me is rather a cold and distant filmmaker, like the late Stanley Kubrick. But while Kubrick put his characters into a petri dish and observed them through a microscope, Cronenberg is more likely to dissect them. That said, it's impressive that Cronenberg has been able to maintain a long career mostly making original and provocative movies. The Shrouds MA15+, 119 minutes 3 stars Be warned: this is not a film for all tastes. Canadian writer-director David Cronenberg, now in his 80s, has become indelibly associated with body horror - where the physical form is mutilated, infected, or otherwise treated badly. He's occasionally dabbled in somewhat more conventional fare but it's things like the exploding heads in Scanners and the grotesque transformation in The Fly that spring to mind when his name is mentioned. This film is no exception. The Shrouds has a poignant origin. Cronenberg's wife of more than 40 years, Carolyn, died several years ago from cancer at the age of 66 and he poured some of his grief and devastation into this film. But it's by no means a sentimental wallow. Like many Cronenberg films, it is cool and concerned with ideas as well as characters and story, perhaps easier to admire and think about and discuss than enjoy. Karsh (played by Vincent Cassel, styled to look rather like Cronenberg), a former industrial filmmaker, now has a restaurant, the unique selling point of which is that it's in a cemetery he runs. But it's not just any cemetery. When his wife Becca (Diane Kruger) died a few years earlier from cancer, the grief-stricken Karsh invented Gravetech. It's a technology allowing people to monitor the decay of their deceased loved ones in their graves via specially devised shrouds in which they are contained. The 3D images are live and interactive. It's certainly one way of maintaining a connection with a loved one. Karsh has a grave beside his wife's for when his time comes (I don't think mention is made of who might monitor that). Not surprisingly, this invention has been controversial and makes some uncomfortable. However, people have taken it up and national and international expansion plans are in progress. There's an awkwardly funny scene where Karsh demonstrates Gravetech to a woman while on a blind date their common dentist arranged. She is not seen again. While his dating conversation might need work, Karsh does eventually meet someone, Soo-Yin (Sandrine Holt). She's blind, meaning she can't see the decaying corpses, which might help. Besides monitoring his wife's decay on Gravetech, and conversing with the AI avatar Hunny (voiced by Kruger), Karsh also maintains a connection of sorts through his friendship with Becca's identical sister, Terry (Diane Kruger). His subconscious is haunted by dreams in which Becca comes home to him disfigured and depleted from cancer treatments administered by her oncologist (who's also her ex-lover). There's some very Cronenbergian imagery here. One night, some of the graves including his wife's are vandalised and hackers disrupt the network so the graves cannot be viewed. Both for business and personal reasons, Karsh wants to find out who did this. He calls on Terry's ex-husband Maury (Guy Pearce), who had coded the system's security, to investigate. The character relationships are a bit complicated to unravel and some of the dialogue Cronenberg has written to clarify this comes off as a bit clumsy. Still, it does the job. While Cronenberg is associated with horror, a lot of the time is spent, here as elsewhere, with characters talking, often in subdued fashion. Patience and attention are required. Having begun with a science fiction/technology premise permeated by grief and loss, the film moves into conspiracy territory as Maury and Karsh look into the damage that's been done. Who's behind the sabotage and vandalism? What are the strange protrusions that are manifesting themselves on the corpses? It's intellectually interesting but a little emotionally arid, despite the film's very personal inspiration. Cronenberg to me is rather a cold and distant filmmaker, like the late Stanley Kubrick. But while Kubrick put his characters into a petri dish and observed them through a microscope, Cronenberg is more likely to dissect them. That said, it's impressive that Cronenberg has been able to maintain a long career mostly making original and provocative movies. The Shrouds MA15+, 119 minutes 3 stars Be warned: this is not a film for all tastes. Canadian writer-director David Cronenberg, now in his 80s, has become indelibly associated with body horror - where the physical form is mutilated, infected, or otherwise treated badly. He's occasionally dabbled in somewhat more conventional fare but it's things like the exploding heads in Scanners and the grotesque transformation in The Fly that spring to mind when his name is mentioned. This film is no exception. The Shrouds has a poignant origin. Cronenberg's wife of more than 40 years, Carolyn, died several years ago from cancer at the age of 66 and he poured some of his grief and devastation into this film. But it's by no means a sentimental wallow. Like many Cronenberg films, it is cool and concerned with ideas as well as characters and story, perhaps easier to admire and think about and discuss than enjoy. Karsh (played by Vincent Cassel, styled to look rather like Cronenberg), a former industrial filmmaker, now has a restaurant, the unique selling point of which is that it's in a cemetery he runs. But it's not just any cemetery. When his wife Becca (Diane Kruger) died a few years earlier from cancer, the grief-stricken Karsh invented Gravetech. It's a technology allowing people to monitor the decay of their deceased loved ones in their graves via specially devised shrouds in which they are contained. The 3D images are live and interactive. It's certainly one way of maintaining a connection with a loved one. Karsh has a grave beside his wife's for when his time comes (I don't think mention is made of who might monitor that). Not surprisingly, this invention has been controversial and makes some uncomfortable. However, people have taken it up and national and international expansion plans are in progress. There's an awkwardly funny scene where Karsh demonstrates Gravetech to a woman while on a blind date their common dentist arranged. She is not seen again. While his dating conversation might need work, Karsh does eventually meet someone, Soo-Yin (Sandrine Holt). She's blind, meaning she can't see the decaying corpses, which might help. Besides monitoring his wife's decay on Gravetech, and conversing with the AI avatar Hunny (voiced by Kruger), Karsh also maintains a connection of sorts through his friendship with Becca's identical sister, Terry (Diane Kruger). His subconscious is haunted by dreams in which Becca comes home to him disfigured and depleted from cancer treatments administered by her oncologist (who's also her ex-lover). There's some very Cronenbergian imagery here. One night, some of the graves including his wife's are vandalised and hackers disrupt the network so the graves cannot be viewed. Both for business and personal reasons, Karsh wants to find out who did this. He calls on Terry's ex-husband Maury (Guy Pearce), who had coded the system's security, to investigate. The character relationships are a bit complicated to unravel and some of the dialogue Cronenberg has written to clarify this comes off as a bit clumsy. Still, it does the job. While Cronenberg is associated with horror, a lot of the time is spent, here as elsewhere, with characters talking, often in subdued fashion. Patience and attention are required. Having begun with a science fiction/technology premise permeated by grief and loss, the film moves into conspiracy territory as Maury and Karsh look into the damage that's been done. Who's behind the sabotage and vandalism? What are the strange protrusions that are manifesting themselves on the corpses? It's intellectually interesting but a little emotionally arid, despite the film's very personal inspiration. Cronenberg to me is rather a cold and distant filmmaker, like the late Stanley Kubrick. But while Kubrick put his characters into a petri dish and observed them through a microscope, Cronenberg is more likely to dissect them. That said, it's impressive that Cronenberg has been able to maintain a long career mostly making original and provocative movies.
Irish Examiner
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Film review: Jurassic Park: Rebirth places the focus on the real stars — the dinosaurs
It is hard to believe the world might grow weary of living dinosaurs, but such is the world of Jurassic Park: Rebirth (12A), which begins 32 years on from the opening of the theme park that offered the miracle of resurrected Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus rex, et al. These days, alas, the kids are inured to the wonder of the dinosaurs, who, dying off due to climate change and disease, can only be found in the wild in a no-go zone around the equator. Enter Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), a pharmaceutical company fixer who requires dino DNA for a revolutionary new heart medicine, and who commissions the mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) to assemble a team to source the DNA of three of the biggest dinosaurs that ever lived. Complicating matters is the fact that the three behemoths are seagoing, airborne, and land-dwelling; also, the samples need to be taken from living creatures. Having thus raised the stakes a little higher than previous Jurassic Park movies, director Gareth Edwards unleashes his crack team on a remote island — Zora pulls in her old sea-captain pal Duncan (Mahershala Ali), and dino expert Dr Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) — and tosses them into scenarios that fans of the franchise will recognise as a kind of Jurassic Park greatest hits, albeit one that includes dinosaurs that have evolved/mutated into beasts that are strongly reminiscent of the nightmarish creatures from the Alien franchise. An early nod to the work of animation genius Ray Harryhausen tells us that Edwards is deliberately harking back to past glories, and for the most part it works. Scarlett Johansson is enjoyably self-deprecating and hard-nosed as the mercenary-in-chief, and there's strong support from a charismatic Mahershala Ali and a quietly diffident Jonathan Bailey, who deftly juggles the twin roles of hapless boffin and Johansson's love interest — although, as always, it's the terrifying dinosaurs who are the real stars. Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger in 'The Shrouds.' The Shrouds ★★★☆☆ Cinema release The Shrouds (16s) stars Vincent Cassel as Karsh Relik, a man who has pioneered 'Gravetech', a coffin-cam technology and the ultimate memento mori that allows mourners to observe their loved ones decomposing in their graves. Obsessed with his dead wife Becca (Diane Kruger), Karsh is horrified when his cemetery is vandalised, and suspects corporate sabotage —a view shared by Terry (also played by Kruger), Becca's sister and Karsh's confidante. All of which sounds morbid, to say the least, but is par for the course for writer-director David Cronenberg, who once again explores many of the motifs that have characterised his work: body horror, doppelgängers, the unholy blend of human and machine. It all feels rather stilted, however, and particularly Cassel's performance and dialogue delivery, and the story itself has the clumsy, fumbling feel of a man trying to remember how this thing used to work. Beat the Lotto Beat the Lotto ★★★☆☆ Cinema release Beat the Lotto (G) is a documentary by Ross Whitaker detailing how a syndicate of gamblers, assembled in 1992 by Cork man Stefan Klincewicz, attempted to scoop the Lotto by buying up every single possible combination of six numbers. Featuring contemporary TV footage and talking heads interviews with the syndicate members, the film does a surprisingly good job of ramping up the tension in a story we already know the outcome of, as the Lotto, alerted to the unusual patterns of play, goes on the offensive. That said, Whitaker is less successful at framing the syndicate as plucky outsiders who took on the system and won; despite their almost child-like excitement at being on the inside track, these are men who seek to strip away the fantasy of winning the Lotto in their pursuit of a cast-iron plunger. As journalist Mark Little points out, the perfectly legal heist marked the death of a certain kind of economic innocence as we belatedly learned that the luck of the Irish was no substitute for a clear-eyed appraisal of the odds.
Irish Independent
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
The Shrouds review: Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, and some icky ‘GraveTech' make for a lifeless horror
That man is Karsh (Vincent Cassel), a wealthy widower who invests his fortune in GraveTech – a ghastly burial enterprise that allows people like him to livestream images of their loved ones' decomposing corpses. It involves an elaborate shroud, and Karsh should probably see a therapist. Instead, he dreams of being reunited with wife Becca (Diane Kruger) and is devastated to discover someone has vandalised her grave. Becca's twin Terry (also Kruger) tries to help; so does Terry's ex, a greasy brainbox named Maury (Guy Pearce). Dicey love affairs and grisly medical conspiracies complicate matters. Cronenberg has made ickier horrors, but I'm not sure he's made a film quite as lifeless as The Shrouds. It's a personal project for the Canadian auteur, whose film editor wife Carolyn Zeifman died in 2017 – and if you look hard enough, you can see what he's trying to get at. Silly, superficial plot swerves and contrived, theatrical exchanges spoil the tension. A disappointment.
