Listen up, you morbid weirdos, because I’m about to dissect The Shrouds, David Cronenberg’s latest dive into the grotesque, served with a side of techno-paranoia and personal baggage. This ain’t your typical horror flick. It’s a slow, cerebral creepshow. Does it deliver the weird, daring, atmospheric punch we crave, or is it just a recycled Cronenberg riff that’s lost its edge? Let’s peel back the shroud and see what’s rotting underneath, because I’m not here to coddle mediocrity.

David Cronenberg, Canada’s king of body horror, wrote and directed The Shrouds. With a career spanning Scanners (1981), The Fly (1986), and Videodrome (1983), he’s the godfather of flesh-twisting cinema, inventing the term “Cronenbergian” for his visceral, cerebral style. His recent Crimes of the Future (2022) marked a return to body horror, earning mixed praise for its bold but uneven ideas. Inspired by his wife Carolyn’s 2017 death from cancer, The Shrouds is his most personal work, blending grief with his signature tech-fetish dread. Cronenberg’s Toronto roots and festival cred (Cannes, TIFF) cement him as a genre titan, but at 81, some argue he’s coasting on past glories. Still, his knack for probing the human psyche through grotesque lenses keeps him relevant, even if his latest feels like a remix of his greatest hits.

In a near-futuristic Toronto, Karsh (Vincent Cassel), a grieving widower and tech mogul, runs GraveTech, a cemetery where high-tech shrouds with cameras let loved ones watch their dead decompose in real-time 8K. Karsh, still raw from his wife Becca’s (Diane Kruger) cancer death, obsessively monitors her decay, blurring lines between love and morbidity. When vandals hit his cemetery, Karsh, aided by Becca’s twin sister Terry (also Kruger) and twitchy hacker Maury (Guy Pearce), unravels a web of conspiracy tied to his tech. This 119-minute slow-burn blends body horror, techno-thriller, and grief drama, leaning on eerie visuals and existential unease over traditional scares. It’s a weird-ass premise that’s pure Cronenberg, but not quite the horror banger you might expect.

The Shrouds is a meditation on grief, technology, and the body’s betrayal, wrapped in Cronenberg’s cold, clinical gaze. The GraveTech shrouds symbolize our refusal to let go, turning death into a voyeuristic spectacle, a perverse extension of social media’s obsession with oversharing. Karsh’s fixation on Becca’s rotting corpse mirrors society’s fraught relationship with mortality, where tech promises control but delivers alienation. The film’s religious undertones, like references to the Shroud of Turin, probe humanity’s search for meaning in decay, while Becca’s cancer-ravaged flashbacks expose the brutal intimacy of loss. It’s a critique of tech’s hollow promises, shitting on surveillance and AI (Karsh’s assistant, voiced by Kruger, feels sinister) as tools that deepen isolation.

Douglas Koch’s cinematography is haunting, with sterile Toronto skylines and glowing grave-screens creating a dystopian chill. Howard Shore’s jarring electronic score amplifies the unease, like a funeral dirge for the digital age. Cronenberg’s script is talky, with stilted dialogue that’s sometimes profound, sometimes pretentious. Philosophically, it asks if tech can heal grief or just fetishize it, reflecting a world where we’re more connected to screens than souls. It’s not as sharp as Crash (1996), but its raw honesty about mourning cuts deep, even if it wanders.

The Shrouds is a worthy beast. Like most of Cronenberg’s work, its originality shines. GraveTech is a fucked-up concept that’s quintessentially Cronenberg, blending body horror with techno-paranoia in a way no one else could pull off. The premise alone, inspired by Cronenberg’s real grief, feels raw and daring. Vincent Cassel is magnetic as Karsh, his restrained torment and creepy obsession anchoring the film’s emotional core. Diane Kruger’s dual role as Becca/Terry is unsettling, her ghostly presence in flashbacks and AI voice haunting as hell. The visuals with glowing graves and decaying flesh are pure nightmare fuel, with practical effects that make you wince. It’s psychological and atmospheric.

But here’s where I get pissy. The movie is a slog. 119 minutes feels like 200, with repetitive scenes of Karsh moping or expository dumps that stall the momentum. The conspiracy subplot, involving vague Russian/Chinese vandals, is a cluttered mess, diluting the grief narrative like a bad X-Files episode. Characters like Maury and Terry are underdeveloped; Pearce’s twitchy hacker feels like a caricature, and Kruger’s Terry gets lost in the plot’s tangents. The dialogue can be painfully stilted: “This is what grief does,” a dentist intones, like a fortune cookie from hell. Compared to Videodrome’s tight focus, The Shrouds feels like Cronenberg riffing on old ideas without the same spark. It’s not derivative, but it’s too unfocused. The horror’s more cerebral than visceral, which I dig, but it lacks the gut-wrenching payoff of The Fly.

The Shrouds is a weird, daring flick that scratches my itch for bold premises and atmospheric horror, with GraveTech’s creepy tech-horror and Cassel’s raw performance hitting a sweet spot. Cronenberg’s personal grief gives it a haunting edge, and the visuals are unsettling as fuck. But the glacial pacing, convoluted conspiracy, and half-baked supporting characters drag it down. It’s not the masterpiece I’d hoped for from the body horror king, but it’s leagues above the usual bland studio slop. For fans of cerebral horror with thematic meat, it’s worth a watch, but don’t expect a new Videodrome. Cronenberg’s still got it, just not at full throttle.

TL;DR: The Shrouds is a creepy, grief-soaked techno-horror that’s bold but bloated, with stunning visuals and a killer premise undone by sluggish pacing and a messy plot. Cassel shines, but it’s no Cronenberg classic.