​

 

​

I have been consistently looking for more and more horror I haven’t seen or heard of, the lesser knowns of my favorite directors and stumbled upon the great David Cronenberg’s psychological thriller Dead Ringers. I naively and unabashedly watched it alone with my dog, a freshly packed bowl and some popcorn.

​

Dead Ringers is about a set of identical twins who run a gynecological practice together. Being only minutes apart, they had a very deep and shared relationship. As the movie progresses, you realize that their relationship is more sharing and deep than normal. Elliot and Beverly are completely enmeshed with each other -- so much so that they pretend to be each other frequently to manipulate people in their personal and professional lives.

 

You quickly see even from the beginning scenes of the Mantles’ in childhood that they were detached from most emotions and had a clinical mindset towards most things including why we need to have sex as a species. They had a cold and growing interest with the reproductive system even at the age of 8. I was already creeped out 15 minutes or so in because of their simultaneous and conscious choice to be gynos as identical twins. Like, for real?

 

It seems at first that they had a very fluid rhythm about their lives, regardless of if that included positive or moral things. Elliott and Jeremy were extremely successful doctors, but lacked empathy in pretty alarming ways.  Despite Elliot being more confident and Jeremy being shy and anxious, they both were incredibly codependent with each other and had large egos as a result. 

 

Elliot begins to seduce patients at the clinic and when he has gotten his sexual thrills, will let his brother Jeremy act as his replacement for them - since he has a harder time with women. It is a grotesque look at the ability of cis men, their lack of empathy towards women emotionally or sexually. To the twins, it was nothing more than their little demented secret, and not the lying and betrayal of several different lives -- and manipulation towards their vulnerable patients.

 

But then there was Claire.

 

Claire is a pivotal change in the movie because at first I thought that the twins were just fuckboys with money and brains, but her character became the crux of their undoing. Claire was a new patient and came to their clinic to check out her chances of conception but was met with the usual coldness of Beverly that she can never have children.She unusually had 3 cervixes and could not support a pregnancy in that rare case. Devastated and vulnerable, she turned to Beverly and developed a sexually kinky yet emotionally unstable relationship.

 

Beverly became obsessive and unhinged in their unstable, drug-filled relationship. Jeremy, in fear of his brothers undoing tries to cover him endlessly but it eventually drags them both lower. The reason why this movie scared me so much, turned my stomach, and sent chills up my spine is because of Beverley in particular. He begins to lose mental control and a grasp on his reality and soon is convinced of the existence of “mutant female genitalia”.

 

He creates new horrific gynecological tools that look 100% more harmful than any cold metal speculum with sharp sides, knives, spikes, clamps. I watched an interview with Cronenberg about Dead Ringers and he said that all of the (cis) women he spoke to had a much harder time than all of the (cis) men he spoke to in relation to the film. As someone who needs OB/GYN care, we have to constantly take care of ourselves by being intimate in noticing changes as well as going in for care.

 

It is a vulnerable and intimidating process for many, because often it is stranger (though they maybe a doctor) doing the touching and checking out. Bedside manner is an integral part of being a doctor because it helps bring comfort and relief that patients need in their times of distress in relation to their health. What makes it scary is the Mantle brothers have none. They are not particularly sweet in their office, in the operating room, or outside of it. They are egotistical and arrogant, so much so that they make a game out of it in the way that they respond to people who disagree with them especially the women in the movie.

 

Beverly in the most memorable scene says “there’s nothing matter with the instrument, it’s the body”, which stood out immensely for me. Even though David Cronenberg is a man, is he showing us the coldness and manipulative nature of patriarchy? How antagonizing and selfish men can be under patriarchy’s full mindset control and use and abuse femmes and their bodies. What would be worse than finding out your doctor is someone you cannot trust, when you need to trust your doctor? What is worse than a sexist gynecologist?

 

Their almost sociopathic lack of emotion and empathy is their most serious and scary trait. Their obsession with each other and absence of empathy with others shows their lack of comprehension of love and human nature. It seems as if Beverley and Jeremy were trying to look for an understanding in relation to women through their manipulative responses. Their cold disposition towards their patients and women came to a crashing holt during the climax of the film. It is in death that Beverly and Elliot realize what being open, vulnerable and loving really means. No one can be colder than death, for it comes to us all at some point without reason or motive - but just as a clinical procedure in this universe.