The Sundance Film Festival’s depraved talker this year is “Infinity Pool” by director Brandon Cronenberg.
Although reports from Sunday night’s premiere screening — appropriately in the midnight program — said there were no major walkouts, there were ample bodily fluids.
In one scene, Alexander Skarsgård’s character ejaculates, with his member in full view of the camera. (This is likely a special effect.)
Another key part of the plot is a slew of slayings — in the form of bloody executions. Doubling down on the gore, the film’s tagline is “Only through blood can you release your past.”
And there are demented, hallucinogenic, graphic orgies.
The film by Cronenberg, son of “Crimes of the Future” director David Cronenberg, is set at a foreign resort where if a guest wanders off the heavily protected grounds, they will discover hedonism and untold violence — mostly perpetrated by other international visitors.
Collider’s review called it “ ‘The White Lotus,’ but for sickos.”
Those checking in include Skarsgård and actress Mia Goth from “Pearl.”
“Infinity Pool,” directed by Brandon Cronenberg, features orgies and executions. Courtesy of the Sundance InstituteThe fictional Eastern European-looking country has a zero-tolerance policy for crime, and the penalty is death. But, adding a science-fiction element, well-heeled tourists can be cloned and watch their double be executed instead.
When asked at a post-screening Q&A what the most memorable part about filming the messed-up movie was, Skarsgård, 46, replied, “Fighting a naked version of myself to the death and then being breastfed by Mia … that’s not something you get to do very often as an actor.”
That’s not quite “CODA,” the Sundance heart-warmer that won the Best Picture Oscar last year.
Alexander Skarsgård fights naked with his clone.Getty Images, But the film follows suit with the other work of Cronenberg, 43, such as 2012’s “Antiviral,” about a clinic that allows average customers to have celebrities’ viruses injected into them to feel more connected to the stars.
The version of “Infinity Pool” shown at freewheeling Sundance Sunday night is rated NC-17, but when Cronenberg’s film is released nationwide on Jan. 27 it will be a tamer R.
