Underplayed Gems

Naked Lunch (1991)

Naked Lunch poster
Directed by
David Cronenberg
Genre
drama film, horror film, science fiction film, experimental film, mystery film, surrealist film
Country
United Kingdom, Japan, Canada
Runtime
1h 50m
Rated
R
Rating
7.0 of 10 from 1,218 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A writer becomes entangled with his typewriter and a mysterious drug in a surreal and paranoid world. He travels to the Interzone where he encounters bizarre characters and creatures. The story blends elements of the original novel with the biography of its author.

surrealdisorientingdreamlikeunsettlingdarkly comicslow-burncerebralvisually strangebleak

What happens

Naked Lunch is a 1991 surrealist science-fiction drama film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, and Roy Scheider. It is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs's 1959 novel Naked Lunch, and an international co-production of Canada, Britain, and Japan. The film was released on 27 December 1991 in the United States by 20th Century Fox and 24 April 1992 in the United Kingdom by First Independent Films. It received positive reviews from critics, but was a box office flop, grossing only $2.6 million against a $17–18 million budget due to a limited release. It won numerous honours, including the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director and seven Genie Awards, notably Best Motion Picture. Naked Lunch has since become a cult film, acclaimed for its surrealistic visual and thematic elements. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.