The Baron Of Blood, David Cronenberg, gets stuck back into some body horror in his first sci-fi feature since 1999’s eXistenZ. Crimes Of The Future recycles a title he used in 1970, but that shares only superficial similarities with its namesake. It’s set in an unspecified, thoroughly dystopian future, where humans are evolving at pace to the increasing concern of the authorities. Frequent Cronenberg collaborator Viggo Mortensen once again heads things up, with Léa Seydoux and Kristen Stewart flanking him, the latter seductively informing us that ‘surgery is the new sex’.

In a world where people no longer suffer pain or have to worry about infection, Mortensen is successful performance artist Saul Tenser. Saul can seemingly will into existence new organs and turns their removal into a creative spectacle, with the assistance of his former trauma surgeon lover Caprice (Seydoux). Stewart and Don McKellar are bureaucrats charged with the registration of new organs, with both becoming fixated on Saul, while Welket Bungué is a ‘new vice’ detective with whom the artist co-operates. Meanwhile, a boy seen eating plastic at the outset may hold the key to a more sustainable future.

There are plenty of fascinating ideas here to pique your interest and enough bizarre imagery to haunt your dreams, including the monstrous devices employed by Saul to aid sleep and digestion. Yet the film’s reality feels inadequately fleshed out; it’s sparsely populated without enough sense of society at large and the supporting characters are thinly drawn, including Stewart’s. If it feels like a starting point rather than the finished product, the committed cast and engagement with issues like the climate crisis and cosmetic-surgery craze should keep you hooked. And, as is no doubt Cronenberg’s intention, there’s something gloriously perverted about the whole thing. 

In cinemas now.