With his latest film, Crimes Of The Future, making its big debut at Cannes this year, it seems somehow fitting that David Cronenberg has another project offering its rights for sale there. And The Shrouds sees him reuniting with Vincent Cassel, who has worked with the director twice in the past.
Though Cassel's previous Cronenberg films, Eastern Promises and A Dangerous Method have leaned towards the more straightforwardly dramatic parts of the eclectic director's work (i.e. less body horror, of which Future, for example is chock full), it sounds like Shrouds could certainly lean that way.
The actor will play Karsh, an innovative businessman and grieving widower, who builds a device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud.
In the story, Karsh’s revolutionary business is on the verge of breaking into the international mainstream when several graves within his cemetery are vandalized and nearly destroyed, including that of his wife. While he struggles to uncover a clear motive for the attack, the mystery of who wrought this havoc, and why, will drive Karsh to reevaluate his business, marriage and fidelity to his late wife’s memory, as well as push him to new beginnings...
Cronenberg will have the cameras rolling in March next year.