Brandon Cronenberg’s second feature will no doubt confirm those nasty rumors that daddy David set his son on the road to dreamland every night with Videodrome projected on the nursery wall opposite the baby’s crib. With all the omniscient intensity (and some of the uncomfortability) associated with having a mind-altering jumper cable clamped to the medulla oblongata, Possessor leads audiences on a fantastic, at times insanely original voyage through the inwardness of a brain-implant assassin. Though Cronenberg the younger has yet to establish a clinician’s eye of his own, when it comes to basting his frames with “body horror,” the apple not only landed close to the tree, it hit the ground with such force that the limbs began to shudder. But Brandon can’t resist the gross-out effects — hacking away at characters as if they were sugar cane plants — needed to mollify a jaded youth market. As stylish as the ride was, we arrived at our final destination with little in the way of a point to the journey. (2020) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.