One in every of many explanation why Seth’s degradation is so troublesome to witness is that it straight speaks to our anxieties surrounding the decay of our personal minds and our bodies, be it pure or because of some sickness. Within the case of the latter, the transitional interval could be extraordinarily painful and alienating, eternally altering how we understand private relationships and our personal understanding of who we’re. David Cronenberg visualizes these latent anxieties by including a nightmarish tint to them. Seth’s physique mutates, peels off, and sprouts recent outgrowths full of disgusting fluids, and the vary of those organic horrors is astounding. Whereas these visible horrors dominate, Cronenberg’s imaginative and prescient is just not skin-deep, because the psychological implications of those mutations are much more haunting than we wish to admit.

On an emotional degree, Seth’s ardour morphs into abusive obsession, and his calm confidence provides approach to an unpleasant model of narcissistic possessiveness, which Ronnie is a sufferer of. When Ronnie and Stathis attempt to cease him from actualizing his desires in the long run, Seth hounds them with the informal cruelty of people swatting a housefly, giving no second thought to the top of its lifecycle. At this second, human yardsticks for morality imply nothing to Seth, as he believes he has developed right into a superhuman who doesn’t want love or acceptance to maintain him. This transformation is merciless — he’s now a creature of intuition, incapable of dreaming about insect politics.

A sliver of humanity fights by the rot, resulting in the loss of life of the person Seth was and will have been. With this mercy killing, his burgeoning monstrosity dies too. However this loss of life doesn’t really feel like a victory; it’s a tragic, inevitable finish to a metamorphosis gone improper.