150 Word Review: 'The Shrouds' (2025)
Tomb with a view
From a distance, the macabre idea at the heart of The Shrouds is almost funny. Imagine being able to watch a beloved family member rot in their grave via a webcam app on your iPhone. But up close, it’s a dour sci-fi meditation on loss and the intimate relationships the living have with the dead.
Vincent Cassel stars as a widowed tech guy who pours his grief into disrupting the cemetary business. The Shrouds is a confusing jumble of conspiracy theories and betrayals, plaintive silences and kinky moments. Diane Kruger is exceptional as Cassel's character's wife and twin sister. She also voices a disturbing AI assistant. Director David Cronenberg has described the movie as "personal." It's undoubtedly a vulnerable, occasionally gross film, but haunted by stiff exposition and funeral-like pacing.
Cronenberg is more than just the master of "body horror." He's a filmmaker obsessed with human mess: emotional, spiritual, physical.
More Cronenberg: ‘The Fly’ (1986)
Even More Cronenberg: ‘Crimes of the Future’ (2022)
