A mind-blower in the most literal sense, David Cronenberg’s early Eighties sci-fi horror was given a rocky birth thanks to the famed Canadian Capital Cost Allowance tax shield. Rushed into screaming life without a script in order to capture subsidies, there’s a roughness here working to emphasize the wrong-footed first steps protag Cameron Vale takes in understanding his latent telepathy. Here’s an early edition of the tried and true Cronenberg formula, where a person enters a subculture and ends up nearly drowning in it – often because the water there’s more welcoming than the steely corporate reality above the surface. But if thinking about themes ain’t your speed, let me give you the real sales pitch: That head-exploding scene’s pretty f*ckin’ cool, dude. – James Scott