David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds gets a new trailer

In an eerie, deceptively placid near-future, a techno-entrepreneur named Karsh (Vincent Cassel) has developed a new software that will allow the bereaved to bear witness to the gradual decay of loved ones dead and buried in the earth. While Karsh is still reeling from the loss of his wife (Diane Kruger) from cancer—and falling into a peculiar sexual relationship with his wife’s sister (also Kruger)—a spate of vandalized graves utilizing his “shroud” technology begins to put his enterprise at risk, leading him to uncover a potentially vast conspiracy. Written following the death of the director’s wife, the new film from David Cronenberg is both a profoundly personal reckoning with grief and a descent into noir-tinged dystopia, set in an ominous world of self-driving cars, data theft, and A.I. personal assistants. Offering Cronenberg’s customary balance of malevolence and wit, The Shrouds is a sly and thought-provoking consideration of the corporeal and the digital, the mortal and the infinite.

Directed by David Cronenberg, the film stars Vincent Cassel, Léa Seydoux, Diane Kruger, Sandrine Holt and Guy Pearce.

The concept was originally set as a Netflix series, with Cronenberg writing two episodes before the streamer cancelled plans. Cronenberg has said that the film is very “personal” and “autobiographical”

“I think they’re very conservative and for whatever reason, they didn’t go ahead with my project,” Cronenberg said while speaking with Indiewire. “I still thanked them because I wrote a script and I wouldn’t have done that if it hadn’t been for their enthusiasm.”

He added, “I was interested in a streaming series as an alternative form of cinema because suddenly you’re making eight or 10 hours of film.”

The film opens in select US cities on 18th April before opening wide on 25th April.