Vincent Cassel set to star in David Cronenberg's newest thriller

Westworld
(Image credit: HBO)

Vincent Cassel is re-teaming with David Cronenberg for the director's next film, The Shrouds.

According to Deadline, the thriller will star Cassel as Karsh, a grieving widower who builds an innovative device that allows him to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud. The device, which is installed in his state-of-the-art cemetery, allows him and his clients to watch their loved ones decompose in real time. Karsh is on the verge of achieving mainstream success when several of the graves within his cemetery, including his wife's, are vandalized and nearly destroyed. As Karsh struggles to come up with a motive for the attack, he begins to reevaluate his business, marriage, and overall life.

Cronenberg and Cassel first worked together on 2007's Eastern Promises, a gangster film that also starred Naomi Watts and Viggo Mortensen. The two collaborated again in 2011 on A Dangerous Method, a historical film about the foundation of psychology which starred Cassel as Austrian psychoanalyst and Sigmund Freud disciple Otto Gross.

The director's latest film, Crimes of the Future, will make its debut at the Cannes Film Festival and compete for the Palm d'Or. The movie marks Cronenberg's return to the body horror genre, with his last being 1999's ExistenZ. While The Shrouds is being marketed as a thriller, something tells us that a movie about a machine that lets you watch people decompose will definitely have Cronenberg's signature fleshy nightmare flare.

For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in 2022 and beyond. 

Lauren Milici
Senior Writer, Tv & Film

Lauren Milici is a Senior Entertainment Writer for GamesRadar+ currently based in the Midwest. She previously reported on breaking news for The Independent's Indy100 and created TV and film listicles for Ranker. Her work has been published in Fandom, Nerdist, Paste Magazine, Vulture, PopSugar, Fangoria, and more.