THE SHROUDS (2024) – Cronenberg’s Macabre and Confounding Web of Grief and Technology

David Cronenberg’s name is etched into the annals of cult cinema for his penchant for eerie, cerebral explorations of the human body and mind—think Shivers, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, and eXistenZ. That he remains creatively restless at 82 is remarkable; that his films have become even more enigmatic, less accessible, is perhaps less so (think Crimes of the Future in 2022)

With The Shrouds, Cronenberg crafts a film steeped in his favored terrain of body horror and psychological disquiet, but ultimately, the film’s ambition outpaces its coherence. The story orbits Karsh, a bereaved widower and owner of a cutting-edge cemetery, whose invention—a shroud allowing a live digital connection to the deceased—pushes the boundaries of mourning, technology, and, inevitably, taste. The premise is morbidly fascinating, serving both as an extension of Cronenberg’s fascination with the body and as a deeply personal vessel for story’s main character, Karsh’s own loss.

The film is a slow burn, heavy with dialogue and suffused with Cronenberg’s unmistakable aesthetic. There’s a voyeuristic curiosity in watching the plot unfurl, with each conversation drawing us deeper into a web of grief, longing, and technological overreach. The director’s touch is nostalgic and evocative; fans of his earlier work will relish the familiar unease. The cast, led by the ever-compelling Vincent Cassel, with Diane Kruger and Guy Pearce in fine supporting form, grounds the film’s more outlandish conceits in emotional reality.

Yet, as The Shrouds unfolds, it becomes clear that narrative clarity is not on the agenda. The plot meanders, characters make inexplicable choices, and for all its thematic ambition—grief, mortality, the digital mediation of our most intimate experiences—the film offers precious little in the way of resolution. By the time the screen fades to black, we’re left with a thicket of unanswered questions and an ending so ambiguous it feels almost unfinished. It’s as though Cronenberg dares us to construct our own meaning from the ruins of his narrative.

The Shrouds is, in the end, a film that both fascinates and frustrates: a testament to a visionary director’s ongoing inventiveness, even as it threatens to collapse under the weight of its own unbridled eccentricity.