With his third full-length feature film Infinity Pool, Canadian director/screenwriter Brandon Cronenberg steps further out of the shadow of his famous filmmaker father, David Cronenberg. As the offspring of the master of body horror, the 42-year-old Cronenberg has established himself as a budding genre director with the movies, Anti-Viral and Possessor, and three short films, Broken Tulips, The Camera and Christopher Merk, and Please Speak Continuously and Describe Your Experiences as They Come to You.

As Cronenberg’s latest movie releases at the end of January 2023, here’s everything we know about the highly anticipated sci-fi flick.

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Infinity Pool: The Plot

     Neon Pictures

The premise of this gritty modern-day set thriller, which was written by Cronenberg, involves a rich couple, James (Alexander Skarsgård) and Em Foster (Cleopatra Coleman), on vacation at an all-inclusive island resort in the fictional providence of Li Tolqa. After James, who is a well-known novelist, accidentally kills a man in his car, he is given a death sentence by the shady local police. James goes for the outrageous option of paying for the procedure of having a clone of himself made so that his duplicate will take the fall and be executed. This situation leaves a crazed James as declared dead so that he can kill without consequences, giving Cronenberg a landscape of ethical, and bloody scenarios to explore.

In an interview with the Swedish outlet, Damernas Värld, star Skarsgård described the film as “so twisted, dark and sick, completely absurd. It takes place at a resort in a fictional country where there is chaos and darkness and strange orgies and I fight with myself.” The actor also said his character is “a cute and humble Canadian, and it stands as an incredible contrast to the film.”

Infinity Pool: The Cast & Crew

     Warner Bros. / Toho

The film stars Sarsgaard as the lead couple, James, and Cleopatra Coleman as Em, with Mia Goth, Jalil Lespert, Thomas Kretschmann, Jeff Ricketts, Caroline Boulton, Roderick Hill, and Amanda Brugel rounding out the ensemble. This is the hard-working Skarsgård’s follow-up to his starring role in Robert Eggers’ The Northman, while the up-and-coming 29-year-old English actress Goth has been making a name for herself in horror with her notable recent roles in Scream, X, and Pearl. Cronenberg’s latest also gives Coleman a chance to break out from years of mainly television work including parts on Dopesick and The Last Man on Earth.

As for the others behind the scenes, there’s noted cinematographer Karim Hussain, who has worked with Cronenberg previously on Anti-Viral and Possessor, and performed camera duties on Keith Thomas’s Firestarter remake; Canadian electronic composer Tim Hecker, who provided the soundtrack for Jason Lews’ The Free World, handled the score, and another Cronenberg veteran, James Vandewater (The Sleeping Giant, Cash Cab) edited the feature. Infinity Pool was produced by Karen Harnisch, Andrew Cividino, Christina Piovesan, and Noah Segal, who worked with the writer/director on Possessor.

Release Date

Infinity Pool is set to have its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2023. A theatrical release will follow the next week in the United States on January 27, 2023. So far, there is no word about its launching on a streaming service, so it looks like it will be an exclusive to theaters release initially.

Everything Else We Know

     NEON

Cronenberg’s dark, tragic story was shot at the lavish Amadria Park resort in Šibenik, Croatia, which stood in for the fictional Li Tolga, for five weeks which began principal photography there for five weeks on September 6, 2021. The studio moved the production to Hungary, after completing 12 days of shooting, where they finished the film, and it went into post-production in Canada, and was fully completed towards the end of 2022.

Cronenberg’s anxiously awaited body horror work was originally given an NC-17 rating by the Motion Picture Association, but production company Neon, whose 2019 film, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, won the Oscar for Best Picture, appealed the rating. This appeal was rejected, and Cronenberg, aided by editor Vandewater, re-edited the movie, so it could be labeled with an R-rating for its theatrical release in America.

So far, reactions to Infinity Pool have been missed, with walk-outs being reported at some advance screenings. Following in his father’s footsteps in the body horror genre is going to be quite a mighty task for the younger Cronenberg, and this film’s January release doesn’t show a lot of confidence by the studio in his third film. These ambitiously grotesque types of cinema usually take a bit for audiences to accept, much like a lot of his father’s output, so the film’s fate will take some time to access after its release in the first month of 2023.