The Shrouds
By Kit Macdonald
An "eroticised necrophiliac meditation on grief, longing and loss", anyone? That was the memorable and entirely accurate phrase of one reviewer when David Cronenberg's The Shrouds appeared last year. A Black Mirror episode that never was, The Shrouds stars Vincent Cassel as Karsh, a grieving widower and tech entrepreneur who invents a device that allows the living to monitor the decomposition of deceased loved ones in real time via a smart burial shroud connected to an app.
Karsh's creation is intended to be a way to maintain a connection with the dead but instead becomes a source of paranoia, obsession and existential dread. Laced with Cronenberg's trademark body horror, philosophical unease and Ballardian narrative touches, The Shrouds is imperfect but compelling evidence of the continued relevance and vitality of its creator's voice and vision well into his ninth decade.