David Cronenberg, honestly, the dude’s a legend—Toronto-born, 1943, straight into a household with a journalist dad and a piano-playing mom. He started out scribbling creepy stories as a kid (clearly, horror was always in his blood), plus he was into classical guitar until he hit twelve. Then, he goes off to university thinking science is his thing, but, nah, he flips to Literature and comes out with a degree. Didn’t take him long to get his hands dirty in indie filmmaking and some gritty Canadian TV, which totally sharpened his style. By the mid-70s, Cronenberg’s already messing with people’s heads—Shivers and Rabid? Those are wild, bloody rides, vampyres and all. Then Scanners hits in ’81—telepathy, heads literally exploding, the whole nine yards. But The Brood before it? Kinda flew under the radar but it’s super personal and just bonkers. Videodrome, though, that’s when he starts getting all prophetic. TV warping reality, bodies getting weird, and he’s basically calling out society for its obsession with screens and tech like, decades before TikTok. He keeps poking at the line between flesh and mind with stuff like The Dead Zone (yeah, a Stephen King thing) and The Fly, which, let’s be honest, is more than just a remake—it’s pure Cronenberg: gross, sad, genius. By Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch, critics start treating him like an auteur, not just some weirdo with a camera. Crash and eXistenZ? Twisted, challenging, totally Cannes-worthy. And when he drops Spider and A History of Violence, he chills out a bit on the body horror and digs deep into the messiness of people’s minds. Wild career.
Here’s something wild: David Lynch, yeah, the guy famous for his bizarre, dreamy stuff like “Twin Peaks,” actually got offered the director’s chair for “Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi.” Seriously. Lucasfilm wanted him to bring his weird genius to the final chapter of the original trilogy. But Lynch took a meeting with George Lucas, heard the pitch, and apparently just noped out. He turned it down flat. Imagine a Lynchian Star Wars—probably a lot more unsettling, with way more abstract Ewok scenes or something. Fans have speculated for years what that could’ve looked like—would Jabba’s palace have been a fever dream? Would Luke’s final showdown have been even trippier? But nah, Lynch stuck to his artistic guns and passed, leaving the galaxy far, far away to Richard Marquand instead. Just one of those “what could’ve been” moments in film history.
So, here’s this wild thought: what if diseases aren’t just these evil glitches in the system, but more like a massive software update—just, you know, with totally different patch notes? Take the AIDS virus for example. From our side, it’s a disaster, but if you flip the camera and look at life through the virus’s eyes, it’s a full-on party. The virus is living its best life, thriving, multiplying, basically winning at the game of survival. If you watched a movie from the disease’s perspective, you’d almost root for the little guys—no wonder they fight so hard to stick around. Sure, this is all mental gymnastics, but honestly, it hits on a deep emotional level too.
March 15, 1943
5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
Konidela Ram Charan
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Yes, Caitlin Cronenberg
Milton Cronenberg and Surekha
82 years old