Soon, we'll all be able to witness Cronenberg's latest work of art, and I for one am as happy as can be about it. After watching Jennifer Jason Leigh in her first role, EYES OF A STRANGER, I can see she can handle herself quite well in a horror/style setting (even though it's allegedly a sci-fi film, I will think of it as a horror film till I see it). Enough of me... onto the review. Beware of SPOILERS though...

Long-time reader, first time poster. This will hopefully redress the balance on Existenz, which is looking to be my film of the year already. (Starship Troopers took the disco-biscuit for 1998, just so you know where I'm at).

You can call me Sonic Mork.

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OK, Existenz has been drawing predictably mixed responses from those blessed enough to catch preview screenings. So as a long-time Cronenberg fan and a life-long gamer, I thought it was important to point out that Existenz rocks - hard.

Our Dave's getting back to his roots here, and the good news is they're still writhing, slimy and tentacular. It's interesting that this is his first original screenplay for a while, as it does, to be fair, lack the depth of some of his greatest achievements. Videodrome has become an inescapable reality - its murky cable world clearly one Cronenberg was familiar with. Existenz occasionally feels like a vision of the gaming future from back when VR was going to be the next big thing. That said, anyone who's eavesdropped on a conversation between Zelda disciples will appreciate that you don't need something plugged directly into your nervous system - as the fleshy Nintendo controllers with nipples of Existenz are - for a blissfully absorbing gaming experience. The awkward interaction between humans and non-player characters and the apparently illogical jumps between scenes are actually pretty accurate representations of how an adventure game might translate into neuron-reality.

Plot wise, it's a typically convoluted affair, with agents and double agents of rival game corps and reality terrorists all battling it out for supremacy within Existenz, chasing its designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her innocent protector Pikel (Jude Law). It all snaps together with its own internal logic, so that by the end you feel like you've just been submerged in a strange dream world of somebody else's making. This, I imagine, is what a couple of hours immersed in Existenz would feel like, and presumably this is Cronenberg's intention.

The deeper in we get, the stranger it becomes, eventually feeling like an extension of Interzone from Naked Lunch (the film version). There are some truly bizarre moments here that I don't want to spoil for anyone, but if the thought of vats full of bizarre, squirming, mutant amphibians and weapons made from animal and human parts gets you wet, you're going to love this. The film also looks gorgeous. The use of colours in the game world giving it a brilliantly hyper-real feel. Booted back out onto the streets of London, it took a good few minutes to reassemble reality into its constituent parts.

The acting has come in for criticism from some folks, but again, within the context of Existenz it makes sense. Leigh and Law's low-key approach (which feels like pantomime after Crash) contrasts nicely with the OTT behaviours of Willem Dafoe and Ian Holm, amongst other nice cameos. Some of the dialogue is genuinely funny in places: "I have this phobia about being penetrated - surgically." & "It's not a bug, it's a frog, salamander, lizard thing." (Well, I thought they were funny).

I think Existenz could be a real sleeper, unfortunately most likely on video, as I expect the distributors will have real problems working out how to market it. It's certain to appeal to old-school Cronenberg fans, horror freaks, gamers and other seekers-after-weirdness, but may just confuse everyone else. It won't leave you shaking and dysfunctional like Videodrome or Dead Ringers, but you'll come out consumed by an overwhelming sense of coolness and the urge to jump straight back in and see it again. Long live the new fish - or is it a salamander?