After 2024’s brilliant The Substance catapulted body horror into the mainstream, I was excited to give The Shrouds a shot. Since it’s directed by the undisputed king of body horror, David Cronenberg, I knew I wasn’t about to witness a novice at work.
The Shrouds is described as an examination of grief by Cronenberg himself. And knowing he lost his own wife in 2017 adds a heartbreaking layer to a movie about a man’s peculiar obsession with his spouse’s remains.
The Shrouds stars Vincent Cashel as Karsh – a widower who makes a grim living following the death of his beloved wife. As the founder of GraveTech, a strange postmortem business in which people can see live 3D renderings of their loved ones remains, he’s become the Elon Musk of the end-of-life business. While he clearly makes good money (he’s got a koi pond inside his apartment), his odd choice of career puts a cramp in his romantic life.
A promising first date with a redhead named Myrna turns hysterically sour after he shows her his wife’s dead body projected on a screen embedded into her headstone. It’s not exactly romantic, so it’s no wonder Myrna dips out of the date early for a smoke.
After several of the tombs are destroyed by hackers, the graves become unviewable. This leaves Karsh with some very unhappy clients. But it’s when Karsh spots unexplainable growths on Becca’s corpse that he starts to wonder if GraveTech is part of a larger, more sinister conspiracy.
In true Cronenberg fashion, the film isn’t shy when it comes to sex. Morbidity and passion go hand-in-hand in The Shrouds. As Karsh goes about his life, his nights are punctuated with dreams of his deceased wife Becca (Diane Krueger). Who is always naked and becomes increasingly maimed and fragile as cancer destroys her body.
“The left one is my favorite,” Karsh bemoans after his wife’s left breast is removed. He demonstrates a glaringly obvious habit of focusing on how her pain is impacting him rather than her. And it becomes clear Karsh’s perceived ownership of her body started long before her death.
Therein lies my main issue with The Shrouds: the constant, incessant focus on Becca’s physical form. Not once does he mention a thing about her great personality or goodness. Surely qualities she must have possessed to be remembered so dearly. But you’d never know with the way he refuses to wax poetic about anything other than her physicality.
At best, The Shrouds is an examination of how a man’s grief turns into a strange and misplaced obsession. At worst, it’s a story of a narcissist whose love for his wife never extended past her beauty.
The Shrouds has some truly eerie imagery that the horror fan in me enjoyed. And some well-placed dark humor gives a much-needed reprieve from the gloom permeating throughout the film’s two-hour runtime. Still, I would have hoped to see some more love injected into this lifeless horror.
