Crash

David Cronenberg’s famously scandalous adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel examines a human fascination with death and tendency to eroticize violence through the strange allure of automobile collisions.

Cronenberg's Crash centers on a TV director James Ballard (James Spader) who, after getting into a serious head-on collision, inexplicably finds himself sexually aroused by car accidents. He soon discovers an underground subculture of car-crash victims who use car accidents for sexual pleasure, seeking extreme forms of sensation because familiar feelings have long since failed them. James hopes this newfound sexual energy will help rejuvenate his sex life with his wife Catherine (Deborah Unger). When the couple meets the enigmatic Robert Vaughan (Elias Koteas), who fetishizes, photographs, and obsessively recounts traffic collisions, they quickly become swept up in this subversive, sexually-charged subculture—with potentially fatal consequences.

Crash is an erotic, idiosyncratic, psychologically provocative thriller that continues to shock, disturb, and tittilate more than 30 years later. Buckle up.

Part of our "The Uncanny" series. Courtesy: Warner Bros./Swank Motion Pictures

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