Before the Metaverse, before Oculus, and before Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror made virtual reality a household fear, David Cronenberg delivered a gooey, visceral nightmare that still feels ahead of its time. eXistenZ (1999) is the Canadian auteur's take on VR, and it's a full-blown masterpiece of body horror and existential dread.
Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as Allegra Geller, a celebrated game designer whose latest creation—a fleshy, umbilical-corded console that plugs directly into a user's spine—makes her a target. On the run from assassins wielding guns made of bone and teeth, she enlists Jude Law's technophobe security guard, Ted Pikul, to protect her. Together, they jack into the game, and reality becomes a slippery, terrifying thing.
A Virtual World Like No Other
Cronenberg's vision of VR is uniquely organic. The game pods are pulsating, fetus-like lumps; bioports are drilled into spines with jackhammer-like devices; and the virtual world looks like a drab, backwoods fever dream. Roger Ebert once described it as a place that seems ordered over the phone from L.L. Bean. It's a far cry from the sleek, polished simulations we see today, and that's precisely the point.
The film also presages Christopher Nolan's Inception with its multiple layers of reality and unnerving NPCs. But where Nolan went big-budget, Cronenberg went small and intimate—and arguably more disturbing. The NPCs in eXistenZ are a particular highlight: waiters in a Chinese restaurant repeat canned phrases until the right trigger line is spoken, and a gas station owner named Gas (played by a grinningly sinister Willem Dafoe) insists he operates only on the most pathetic level of reality. It's a wry commentary on the frustrations of video game interactions, wrapped in Cronenberg's signature weirdness.
Body Horror at Its Most Gruesome
From Videodrome's vaginal slit in the abdomen to Crash's erotic car-crash scenes, Cronenberg has always explored the intersection of technology and the human body. eXistenZ takes this to new heights. The bioport installation scene—where Law's character gets a hole drilled into his spine—is cringe-inducing enough, but it's topped when his game character later licks Leigh's lubed-up bioport. The Chinese restaurant sequence, featuring a special of alien-mutant creatures, is a masterclass in practical effects and sound design. Law slurping down the creature and later assembling its bones into a gun is both hilarious and horrifying.
The film is also surprisingly funny. The deadpan performances, the matter-of-fact dialogue about bioports and mutants, and Law fending off Dafoe with a wrench all add a layer of dark comedy. It's a Cronenberg film through and through: smart, gross, and deeply unsettling.
A Cult Classic Worth Rediscovering
eXistenZ grossed only $2.9 million at the box office, but it has since become a cult favorite. It stands as one of the last truly classic Cronenberg films before he moved into more commercial territory with A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. In 2026, as we explore further frontiers in virtual living, eXistenZ feels more relevant than ever. It's a straight-up masterpiece of science fiction and body horror that fans of either—or of video games—simply must experience.
For more on genre-defining masterpieces, check out our list of Four Horror Masterpieces That Forever Changed the Genre and The Ultimate Ranking of the Greatest War Video Game Masterpieces Ever.
