David Thomson

Vivarium is a nightmare Rene Magritte could have story boarded. This sci-fi thriller is the dark side of Pleasantville and requires an appetite for allegory. That story within a story is as basic as modern ennui and as complex as growing up.

This ZA thriller is remarkably astute in dramatizing the viral contagion of bad thinking transmitted through our words. If there were ever a case to be made for the social urgency of a cautionary tale, Pontypool would be the exemplar.

Alien (1979) revisited but without its nobility. A sad commentary on human ingenuity.