Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Patience Watson One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Woodyanders Done in a very cold and clinical style, with no direct sound, droning narration that's overloaded with pretentious pseudo-scientific jargon, and great use of a fantastic sprawling location, David Cronenberg's 65-minute debut feature about an experiment on increasing telepathic psychic abilities amongst several volunteer test subjects with unexpected dangerous side effects makes for decidedly rough going, but still manages to impress due to its striking black and white cinematography and a wealth of fascinating ideas that could have benefited from a stronger presentation. The lack of sound proves to be a huge problem, as whole sequences that transpire in total silence are alas positively agonizing to sit through because they seem to go on for an excruciating eternity. Moreover, the glacial pacing certainly doesn't help matters at all while the lack of characterization ensures that the volunteers for the experiment come across more like distant objects than sympathetic human beings. Fortunately, the cast still manage to contribute remarkably expressive pantomime performances as Cronenberg explores his trademark themes of identity, sexuality, and science gone amok. So, it's definitely not top Cronenberg, but nonetheless serves as an intriguing precursor to such latter works as "Shivers" and especially "Scanners."

poe426 STEREO is the first of David Cronenberg's two "psychosexual studies" (the other being the follow-up, CRIMES OF THE FUTURE) and also features the malleable Ron Mlodzik in the lead (here playing the cloaked and mysterious aphrodesiast, "Dr. Stringfellow"). He arrives at the Canadian Academy For Erotic Inquiry, where "human social cybernetics" is practiced. Their motto is: "Love conquers all." Eight "category A" subjects have undergone experimental brain surgery that has rendered them "Telepathists." Like CRIMES OF THE FUTURE, STEREO was shot sans sound, with narration (the "parapsychological experimental gestalt" observations of Dr. Stringfellow) added later: "Electromorphological dependency results in reinforcement withdrawal" when the object of focus is gone- whereupon, brain tissue DESTRUCTS. He interacts with one subject (who has voluntarily had his larynx speech centers removed) by sharing his pacifier (the next best thing to "symbiotic telepathic cohesion," one assumes). "Is abstract, logical thought even possible without language...?" It turns out that Negative Thinking is the Positive way to protect oneself between "attuned" people; unlike SCANNERS, the STEREO redux, where every thought of every passerby is "picked up," here the telepathy must be a "mutual" interaction. "Phenomenological refinement" is the ultimate goal (telepathic communes are suggested). "Omnisexuality" is one possible outgrowth: "a fully three-dimensional sexuality" (as opposed to "monosexuality" or "bisexuality"); group groping is explored. A telepath, he concludes, is the prototype of three-dimensional man... although sometimes a candy bar is just a candy bar... We'll just have to wait, though, until the "electroencephalographic data gets to be evaluated." "Art is the tree of Life," Cronenberg once said in regards to his biohorror approach to film-making: "Science is the tree of Death." STEREO is a fascinating piece of work.

OldAle1 2nd viewing. Alongside "Fast Company" on this fine Anchor Bay presentation are Cronenberg's first two experimental low-budget science fiction features, both filmed on a University of Toronto site in Scarborough, Ontario. I'd seen the first, Stereo on a poor-quality bootleg years ago and am pleased to report that not only does the film hold up to a 2nd viewing, the transfer is quite fine. The voice-over narration to the silent-shot black-and-white footage certainly lends some verisimilitude to the pseudo-documentary conceit of an experimental psych lab devoted to telepathy. Various colleagues of the para-psychologist Luther Stringfellow discuss his experiments and theories and how they bear out in a test group of young subjects apparently capable of various ESP abilities; we watch characters wander around alone or interact with each other individually or in small groups, and their strangeness (in particular one young vampirically-dressed man of rather odd visage) alternates between a sort of normal weirdness and something....else. Are they in fact gifted? Is the narration actually in sync with what we are seeing? Watch it and find out; uncommonly fascinating, if somewhat obtuse. Worthy of comparison with Greenaway's early pseudo-documentary shorts.

sire_galopin Unfortunately, this film is not a great Cronenberg. One can understand that he was only at his beginning and that he had a budget limited to make this film, but they are not the means only I criticize but rather the weakness of the scenario. One has the impression that it occurs nothing in this film. A long walk in corridors, a narration which leaves us on our appetite and not really of dialogs. Me, in what relates to me, I fought of all my forces not to fall asleep during the projection, which however, lasts only one hour. It will be understood that Cronenberg will have had all the time to make better films during following years.