SOURCE: “Medicine, Surrealism, Lust, Anger, and Death: Three Early Films by David Cronenberg,” in Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities, Vol. 15, No. 2, Winter/Spring, 1996, pp. 62–9.

In the following essay, Collins examines the films They Came from Within, Rabid, and The Brood, comparing each with the work of surrealist artists, and also treats Cronenberg's use of medical procedures as a way of addressing the fear of the body.

All Right, nurse, bring the next patient in. Get up on this table, pull off that gown Raise up that right leg, let that left one down Pull off them stockings, that silk underwear Doctor’s got to cut you, mama, lord knows where 

—Big Bill Broonzy, “Terrible Operation Blues” 1930

If the common man has a high enough view of things which properly speaking belong to the realm of the laboratory, it is because such research has resulted in...