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{{Infobox film
| name           = Antiviral
| image          = Antiviral (film).jpg
| caption        = Theatrical release poster
| director       = [[Brandon Cronenberg]]
| producer       = [[Niv Fichman]]
| writer         = Brandon Cronenberg
| starring       = {{Plainlist|
* [[Caleb Landry Jones]]
* [[Sarah Gadon]]
* [[Douglas Smith (actor)|Douglas Smith]]
* [[Joe Pingue]]
* [[Nicholas Campbell]]
* [[Sheila McCarthy]]
* [[Wendy Crewson]]
* [[Malcolm McDowell]]
}}
| music          = E.C. Woodley
| cinematography = [[Karim Hussain]]
| editing        = [[Matthew Hannam]]
| production_companies = {{Plainlist|
* [[Alliance Films]]
* Rhombus Media
* [[Telefilm Canada]]
* [[TF1|TF1 International]]
}}
| distributor    = {{Plainlist|
* Alliance Films (Canada)
* UFO Distribution (France)
}}
| released       = {{Film date|df=yes|2012|05|19|[[2012 Cannes Film Festival|Cannes]]|ref1=<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/article/59234.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924045458/http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/article/59234.html |archive-date=24 September 2015 |title=Screenings of May 19th |date=21 May 2012 |work=Festival de Cannes |access-date=22 August 2013}}</ref>|2012|10|12|Canada|2013|2|13|France}}
| runtime        = 108 minutes
| country        = {{Plainlist|
* Canada
* France
}}
| language       = English
| budget         = [[Canadian dollar|C$]]3.3 million<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/brandon-cronenberg-finds-inspiration-in-the-flu/article4101354/|title=Brandon Cronenberg Finds Inspiration in the Flu|work=[[The Globe and Mail]]|first=Gayle|last=MacDonald|date=6 September 2012|access-date=22 August 2013}}</ref>
| gross          = $123,407<ref>{{cite web |title=Antiviral (2013) |url=https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Antiviral#tab=more |website=[[The Numbers (website)|The Numbers]] |access-date=22 January 2019}}</ref>
}}
'''''Antiviral''''' is a 2012 [[Science fiction film|science fiction]] [[horror film]] written and directed by [[Brandon Cronenberg]]. The film competed in the ''[[Un Certain Regard]]'' section at the [[2012 Cannes Film Festival]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/article/58878.html |title=2012 Official Selection |access-date= 2 April 2016 |work= Festival de Cannes |date= 5 November 2015 |orig-year= 5 May 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= http://www.torontosun.com/2012/04/19/cannes-seeing-double-cronenbergs|title=Cannes Seeing double Cronenbergs|access-date=21 April 2012|newspaper=[[Toronto Sun]]|date=19 April 2012}}</ref> Cronenberg re-edited the film after the festival to make it tighter, trimming nearly six minutes out of the film. The revised film was first shown at the [[2012 Toronto International Film Festival]],<ref>{{cite news |url= http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/09/brandon-cronenberg-brings-first-feature-film-antiviral-home |title= Brandon Cronenberg Brings First Feature Film 'Antiviral' Home |first=Bruce |last=Kirkland |newspaper= [[Toronto Sun]] |date=9 September 2012 |access-date= 11 September 2012}}</ref> and was a co-winner, alongside [[Jason Buxton]]'s ''[[Blackbird (2012 film)|Blackbird]]'', of the festival's [[Toronto International Film Festival Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film|Best Canadian First Feature Film]] award.<ref>{{Cite news |url= http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/artslife/136807-chester-filmmaker-wins-tiff-award-for-blackbird |title= Chester filmmaker wins TIFF award for Blackbird |work= [[The Chronicle Herald]] |date= 17 September 2012 |access-date= 22 August 2013 |last= Nemetz |first= Andrea |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140311004629/http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/artslife/136807-chester-filmmaker-wins-tiff-award-for-blackbird |archive-date= 11 March 2014 |url-status= dead }}</ref>

==Plot==
Syd March is employed by Lucas Clinic, a company which purchases viruses and other pathogens from celebrities, then purposefully infects paying fans who desire a connection with their idols. The company puts a copy protection on its products, which render the pathogens incommunicable after infecting a client. The pathogens supplied by Hannah Geist, Lucas Clinic's exclusive celebrity, are extremely popular. Syd March's colleague, Derek Lessing, is responsible for directly harvesting them from Hannah.

To make extra money, Syd steals pathogens from the lab, bypasses the copy protection with a stolen console, and uses himself as an [[Incubator (culture)|incubator]]. He then passes the pathogens to Arvid to sell on the [[black market]]. Arvid works at Astral Bodies, a celebrity [[meat market]] providing meat [[Cultured meat|grown]] from the cells of celebrities.

After Derek is caught smuggling and arrested, Syd is tasked to replace him to harvest a pathogen from Hannah, who has recently fallen ill. After taking a blood sample from Hannah, Syd injects himself with some of her blood. After experiencing the first symptoms, fever and disorientation, he leaves work early. His attempts to remove the virus' copy protection are unsuccessful, and his console breaks down during the process.

The next day, Syd awakens from severe delirium to learn that Hannah has died from the unknown disease, and all products harvested from her have skyrocketed in popularity. To fix his console, Syd approaches Arvid, who sets up a meeting with Levine, the leader of the piracy group. Levine offers to fix the console in exchange for samples of Syd's blood, but Syd refuses. Levine restrains Syd and forcibly takes samples from him. Lethal pathogens are not legal to distribute, which only increase demands for the pathogen that killed Hannah.

The next day, a severely ill Syd is approached by two men, who drive him to a secret location that houses Hannah. The celebrity, whose death was fabricated to protect her, is barely alive, extremely weak and bleeding from her mouth. Hannah's physician, Dr. Abendroth, reveals the virus infecting them has been engineered with a mechanism to prevent analysis, which broke Syd's console. It is, in fact, a modified version of an illness that Hannah has had before. Abendroth reveals his infatuation with Hannah, showing samples of her skin grafted to his own arm. He derides Syd as "just another fan."

Syd returns to the Lucas Clinic, and traces the original strain of the virus to Derek, who sold it to a rival company, Vole & Tesser. Dr. Abendroth discovers that Vole & Tesser patented the modified strain, though their motives remain unclear. Before Syd can proceed further, he is abducted by Levine. Syd is put in a room where his deterioration and death will be broadcast on [[reality television]] to sate Hannah's fans, who could not witness her death. As Syd begins to show the final symptoms, he escapes by stabbing Levine in the mouth with a syringe and holding a nurse hostage with his infected blood. After Syd realizes that Vole & Tesser infected Hannah to harvest their own patented pathogen from her, Syd contacts them and negotiates a deal.

Some time later, a [[virtual reality]] version of Hannah that advertises the "Afterlife" product, coming exclusively from Vole & Tesser. Syd now works for Vole & Tesser, where Hannah's cells have been replicated to form a distorted cell garden from Astral Bodies' celebrity meat technology. Viruses injected into her system are sold. Syd demonstrates a new virus as he sticks a needle into a genetically created arm. Later, while alone, Syd cuts the arm and drinks the flowing blood; it is revealed the arm is in fact Hannah's, as her deformed face and body are shown to be in the Cell Garden chamber.

==Cast==
{{Cast listing|
* [[Caleb Landry Jones]] as Syd March, an employee at Lucas Clinic
* [[Sarah Gadon]] as Hannah Geist, a world-class celebrity
* [[Malcolm McDowell]] as Dr. Abendroth, Hannah Geist's personal medic
* [[Douglas Smith (actor)|Douglas Smith]] as Edward Porris, a customer of Lucas Clinic
* [[Joe Pingue]] as Arvid, the owner of the Astral Bodies meat market and underground virus trafficker
* [[Nicholas Campbell]] as Dorian Lucas, the founder and owner of Lucas Clinic
* [[Sheila McCarthy]] as Dev Harvey, Hannah Geist's manager
* [[Wendy Crewson]] as Mira Tesser, co-owner of Vole & Tesser, Lucas Clinic's main competitor
* [[James Cade]] as Levine, an underground virus trafficker
* [[Lara Jean Chorostecki]] as Michelle, Lucas Clinic's archivist
* [[Lisa Berry]] as the Lucas Clinic receptionist <ref name="antiviral">{{cite web|url= https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/antiviral/7872d2ae39d2864c |title= Antiviral Directed by Brandon Cronenberg| publisher= shudder.com |date= 2012}}</ref><ref name="aff">{{cite web|url= https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film684326.html |title= Antiviral | publisher= filmaffinity.com |date= 2012}}</ref>
* [[Salvatore Antonio]] as Topp, an employee at Lucas Clinic
* [[Matt Watts]] as Mercer, an employee at Lucas Clinic
* Reid Morgan as Derek Lessing, an employee at Lucas Clinic
* Nenna Abuwa as Aria Noble, the second main celebrity in Lucas Clinic's catalogue
* [[:de:George Tchortov|George Tchortov]] as Portland
}}

==Production==
Cronenberg has stated that the genesis of the film was a viral infection he once had. More precisely, the "central idea came to him in a [[fever dream]] during a bout of illness," wrote journalist Jill Lawless.<ref>{{cite news|url= http://bigstory.ap.org/content/brandon-cronenberg-chip-bloody-block|last=Lawless|first=Jill|title=Brandon Cronenberg Is a Chip off the Bloody Block|work=[[Sioux City Journal]]|date=22 May 2012|access-date=17 March 2013}}</ref> Cronenberg said:
{{blockquote|text=
I was delirious and was obsessing over the physicality of illness, the fact that there was something in my body and in my cells that had come from someone else's body, and I started to think there was a weird intimacy to that connection. And afterwards I tried to think of a character who would see a disease that way and I thought: a celebrity-obsessed fan. Celebrity culture is completely bodily obsessed - who has the most cellulite, who has fungus feet? Celebrity culture completely fetishizes the body and so I thought the film should also fetishize the body - in a very grotesque way.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/cronenbergs-bring-father-son-story-to-cannes-1.1154208|date=22 May 2012|title=Cronenbergs Bring Father-Son Story to Cannes: Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral a Genre Film Like Father's Early Work|work=[[CBC News]]|access-date=17 March 2013}}</ref>
}}

It was further shaped when he saw an interview [[Sarah Michelle Gellar]] did on ''[[Jimmy Kimmel Live!]]''; what struck him was when "she said she was sick and if she sneezed she'd infect the whole audience, and everyone just started cheering."<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.postcity.com/Post-City-Magazines/September-2012/Time-for-Cronenberg-20/|title=Time for Cronenberg 2.0|first=Ron|last=Johnson|journal=Post City Magazines|date=September 2012|issue=September 2012|access-date=11 September 2012}}</ref>

[[Principal photography]] took place in [[Hamilton, Ontario]] and in [[Toronto]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Etan|first=Vlessing|title=Sarah Gadon, Malcolm McDowell Join 'Antiviral'|url=https://hollywoodreporter.com/news/sarah-gadon-malcolm-mcdowell-join-257200|work=[[The Hollywood Reporter]]|access-date=23 August 2013|date=3 November 2011}}</ref>

==Reception==
[[Rotten Tomatoes]] reports that 65% of critics gave the film a positive review with an average score of 6/10, based on 93 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "''Antiviral'' is a well crafted body horror, packed with interesting - if not entirely subtle - ideas."<ref>{{cite web|title=Antiviral|url=https://rottentomatoes.com/m/antiviral/|work=[[Rotten Tomatoes]]|access-date=3 October 2019}}</ref> It holds a score of 55 out of 100 on review aggregator [[Metacritic]], based on 18 reviews.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://metacritic.com/movie/antiviral|title=Antiviral|work=[[Metacritic]]|access-date=22 August 2013}}</ref>

Writing for ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', Tim Robey gives the film 4 stars, calling it "an eye-widening delve into conceptual science fiction," with the "gruesome verve" of his father [[David Cronenberg]]'s early work, "and morbidity to match", and says "there's real muscle in its ideas, a potent kind of satirical despair, and a level of craft you rarely expect from a first-timer."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Robey |first1=Tim |title=Antiviral, review. |access-date=22 January 2019 |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/9840334/Antiviral-review.html |date=31 January 2013}}</ref>

Writing for ''[[Empire (film magazine)|Empire]]'', [[Kim Newman]] called it "a smart, subversive but rather cold debut".<ref>{{cite web|first=Kim|last=Newman|url=https://empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=138028|title=Antiviral|work=[[Empire (magazine)|Empire]]|access-date=9 April 2013}}</ref> ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety's]]'' Justin Chang stated that Brandon Cronenberg "has his own distinct flair for the grotesque", but that "the film suffers from basic pacing issues" and that "''Antiviral'' never builds the sort of character investment or narrative momentum that would allow its visceral horrors to seriously disturb."<ref>{{cite web|first=Justin|last=Chang|url=https://variety.com/2012/film/reviews/antiviral-1117947585/|title=Antiviral|date=20 May 2012|work=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]|access-date=9 April 2012}}</ref> Stephen Garrett of ''[[The New York Observer]]'' described the film as "stomach-churning" and added that "the production, though impeccably polished and featuring an abundance of blood, spit, mucus, and pus, misses the mark with underdeveloped characters and a schematic plot. But boy, do those gory ideas and notions linger in the mind."<ref>{{cite news|last=Garrett|first=Stephen|title=Son of Cronenberg Debuts Freak-fest Antiviral in Cannes|work=[[The New York Observer]]|date=21 May 2012|url= http://observer.com/2012/05/cannes-preview-no-reality-and-antiviral/|access-date=17 March 2013}}</ref>

Peter Bradshaw of ''[[The Guardian]]'' was more negative, stating that "Brandon Cronenberg's movie is made with some technical skill and focus, but it is agonisingly self-regarding and tiresome."<ref>{{cite news|first=Peter|last=Bradshaw|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/may/22/antiviral-review|title=Cannes 2012: ''Antiviral'' – review|date=22 May 2012|work=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=9 April 2013}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{IMDb title|2099556|Antiviral}}
* {{rotten tomatoes|antiviral|Antiviral}}
* {{Metacritic film|title=Antiviral}}

{{Brandon Cronenberg}}
{{TIFF Best Canadian First Feature}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Antiviral}}
[[Category:2012 films]]
[[Category:2012 directorial debut films]]
[[Category:2012 horror thriller films]]
[[Category:2012 independent films]]
[[Category:2012 science fiction films]]
[[Category:2012 Canadian films]]
[[Category:2012 English-language films]]
[[Category:2012 French films]]
[[Category:2010s dystopian films]]
[[Category:2012 science fiction horror films]]
[[Category:2010s science fiction thriller films]]
[[Category:Biopunk films]]
[[Category:Canadian body horror films]]
[[Category:Canadian horror thriller films]]
[[Category:Canadian independent films]]
[[Category:Canadian science fiction horror films]]
[[Category:Canadian science fiction thriller films]]
[[Category:English-language Canadian films]]
[[Category:English-language French films]]
[[Category:English-language independent films]]
[[Category:Films about cannibalism]]
[[Category:Films about fandom]]
[[Category:Films about virtual reality]]
[[Category:Films directed by Brandon Cronenberg]]
[[Category:Films set in the future]]
[[Category:Films set in Toronto]]
[[Category:Films shot in Hamilton, Ontario]]
[[Category:Films shot in Toronto]]
[[Category:French horror thriller films]]
[[Category:French independent films]]
[[Category:French science fiction horror films]]
[[Category:French science fiction thriller films]]
[[Category:English-language science fiction horror films]]
[[Category:English-language horror thriller films]]
[[Category:English-language science fiction thriller films]]
[[Category:Canadian dystopian films]]

{{Wikipedia attribution|original_title=Antiviral (film)|access_date=2026-02-25}}