Cronenberg's 'Antiviral': Sick Style, Slack Story

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A young employee at a clinic that transfers celebrity diseases to eager fans, Syd (Caleb Landry Jones) contracts a deadly superbug from his company's spokesmodel.

Antiviral

• Director: Brandon Cronenberg
• Genre: SciFi, Thriller
• Running Time: 108 minutes

Not rated; some intense images of gore, medical procedures and sexual situations

With: Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gadon, Lisa Berry 

Have mercy on any famous filmmaker's son who hopes to follow in his father's footsteps. The comparisons will be inevitable.

How can fils possibly live up to pere? Maybe it's not such a problem if dad is, say, churn-'em-out schlockmeister Uwe Boll. But do you really want to smear the name of Pops Cronenberg by turning out a pile of junk?

With his debut picture, Antiviral, Brandon Cronenberg, son of David, has made a movie that's decidedly, resolutely unjunky — and more's the pity. This is a sleek, willfully elegant exercise, high on style even if it's conspicuously low on ideas.