The Gables Cinema will kick-off its late-night Gables After Hours series with the Exclusive Miami Theatrical Premiere of Brandon Cronenberg’s effectively chilling thriller Antiviral, Friday and Saturday, April 19 and April 20, at 11:30 pm, in 2K Digital Cinema Projection. Nominated at the Cannes Film Festival for the Un Certain Regard award, Cronenberg’s (son of visionary director David Cronenberg) Antiviral is a decidedly creepy and dystopoian look into a near-future where celebrity obsession has gone sick, literally. Gables After House will continue to showcase an eclectic mix of films ranging from the strange, sexy, horrific, beautiful and offbeat. Both screenings on April 19 and 20 will include 2-4-1 drink offers and other specials at the Cinema Cafe, and Friday’s screening will be preceded by a short live-set from Mothersky, a Miami-based post-punk electronica band.

Antiviral concerns a clinic with an unusual and highly profitable line of business – deliberately infecting paying customers with diseases from top celebrities. This far-out premise, set in a tomorrow which feels scarily almost here, is embellished with rogue operators, a butcher shop that sells cloned muscle meat from famous human donors, and a disturbingly large number of close-ups of hypodermic needle injections, to create a wickedly perverse movie. The chilly setting, the transgressive sexuality, the repellent body horror and the sinister corporations, all unapologetically evoke the films of Cronenberg’s father while successfully updating them for a new generation. The Toronto Star agrees: “Obviously influenced by his dad David’s early work but also showing a strong personal style, Brandon Cronenberg’s feature debut is a body-horror satire with a point – a needle point.” The film stars a disturbingly pallid Caleb Landry Jones, with a special appearance by the legendary Malcolm McDowell.