other outward bodily signs is the same reason that people are afraid of maggots or something, because it sort of repre- sents something negative culturally and something that we’re fearful of, so it seems ugly to us. But the idea that, in a culture where that’s desirable, it’s seen as beautiful is interesting be- cause I think it is obvious that beauty and ugliness aren’t in- herent, they’re entirely cultural.
Even more uncomfortable, though, is the idea of the lit- eral consumption of celebrity, in terms of being able to buy synthetic meat made from DNA at your local deli.
Transformed Man: Syd’s vision of a biomechanical body, and (below) he contemplates his fate from infection.
the most horrific thing in the film. Some of those macro shots were actu- ally more grotesque than the horror things. I
thought that was an interesting take on it. I feel that way too, the explicitness of the body can be more horrific than the blood.
Do you think that has to do with the fact that it’s forcing an intimacy on the viewer that you would never have in real life, generally? Yeah, it’s forcing an incredible intimacy. One of the reasons I was interested in the macro shots was because it’s easy to distance ourselves from our bodies and imagine that we exist as these removed intelligences. I think, especially in our cul- ture – because we all have these online identities and you know with, say, Face- book – everyone has an incredibly crafted theoretical identity where they present this ideal of themselves in a way that they kind of play the celebrity role and the paparazzi. They take pictures of themselves and some people Photoshop them. It’s like this inhuman ideal, this kind of theoretical human being; I feel like we kind of see ourselves that way. When you force a very explicit view of the body, it’s horrific because you don’t want to think that you have a body anymore. People don’t want to see their bodies. They want to see themselves as removed from their bodies, and not as these farting, shitting ani- mals, aging and visibly dying; it’s something we try to ignore as much as possible. So, when you show the body intimately, it can be an incredibly uncom- fortable thing.
The physical signs of disease are the flag of the film. People are otherwise well groomed and they’re manicured for the spotlight, yet they have herpes sores on the sides of their faces and it’s not considered horrific, it’s beautiful. How key is that concept to what you’re trying to say with the movie? The reason that we see disease as more horrific than
I thought it would be a good metaphor just to literally consume celebrities in the most grotesque way. I forget where I came up with it, I was just reading that the technology already exists to grow meat, and that’s something that’s being devel- oped – grown steaks – and so lots of cells were taken from cows, and then you buy them and grow them into steaks. It’s a small step to imagine starting with human muscle cells, and that just seemed really funny and relevant. And then I thought, in a culture where that’s completely normal and everyone does it, of course it’s going to be a small deli, it’ll be everywhere, that’s just the way people eat.
So, where is this going to lead you? Do you want your next film to be radi- cally different? As I said, the film represents my interests and I want to keep doing what’s inter- esting to me, obviously, so I imagine the next one will be related in some way and not a huge departure, but I also don’t want to limit myself.
So then, do you consider Antiviral a horror movie? It is a horror movie. I mean, I think it’s a particular kind of horror movie, which isn’t really saying anything, but yeah, it is a horror movie...because it uses a certain degree of explicit visuals to get a reaction and to tell a story, to set the tone. Horror is hard to define; I think any genre isn’t perfect, but I think there are visually grotesque elements in it, which are part of the story and the theme that put it in the category of horror. I think horror has to do with showing different things and making them visible rather than shying away from those things.
Finally, if you were going to be infected by a celebrity, who would it be? I don’t know. You’re not the first person to ask me that.
How about synthetic meat, would you try that? I would eat anyone’s meat just to know what that was about. You know, who’s going to pass up the oppor- tunity to eat human flesh?