From wikipedia: "
eXistenZ is a 1999 science fiction body horror film produced, written and directed by the Canadian filmmaker
David Cronenberg. It stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law."
This movie was released around the same time as the first film in
The Matrix trilogy. Both dealt with the nature of reality and behavior in a virtual world.
In the next to the last scene of the film, it is revealed that all this action takes place inside another virtual reality video game and no character has died. In the last scene, we are not sure if we are in yet a different video game or in reality.
pp1-3
We meet Wittold Levi, the project manager for eXistenZ at Antenna Research, lecturing about 75 people in a country church. The crowd includes ("Game-Pod Goddess") Allegra Geller, and a security guard Ted Pikul (rhymes with "Michael"). The crowd loves it when Geller is introduced and is fascinated by the (exposition) regarding the world of VR game players the story takes place in.
pp4-5
21 game-pods are set up as demos for crowd members to try out.
pp6-7
Joel Dichter tries to into the demo. Seems to be a huge fan of Geller, from what he says.
pp8-9
Pikul questions Levi about Geller (exposition).
p10
Joel Dichter pulls out an organic rifle, yells "Death to eXistenZ! Death to Antenna Research! Death to the demoness Allegra Geller!" and tries to kill Geller. The first shot hits her in the shoulder and then Pikul tackles Dichter.
pp11-12
Pikul, following a dying command by Levi, takes off with Geller, trying to find a safer location for her.
p13
Pikul and Geller (the aggressor) hijack a car, a Land Rover Defender 110 ("the Defender").
pp14-16
In the car, P+G discuss the assassins and hiding out in the coutry, where it will be safer.
p17
Pikul takes a call on his "pink phone", which Geller throws out, calling the phone a range finder.
p18
Pikul learns, before the phone is thrown away, that Geller has a 5 million dollars bounty, and that there is a group called "Anti-eXistenZialist".
p19
Pikul tells Geller he's not a security guard, but a PR trainee. Pikul is shocked to hear she's in so much trouble.
(Later we see this is a lie.)
p20
They stop on a country road and Pikul digs a bullet out of Geller's shoulder. It's a tooth. The pistol she was shot with shoots human teeth.
pp21-22
They stay in the Salmon Falls Motel. Pikul wants to contact Antenna Research. Geller won't let him. Geller sees Pikul has no bioport. She says "You've never played any game. That means you have no idea what a genius I am."
pp23-24
Pikul claims he's very very nervous about having a bioport installed on his body. Geller convinces him to do it.
p25
Geller convinces him, and Pikul agrees, to have a bioport installed (illegally) in him and play eXistenZ game with Geller.
pp26-27
They go to a gas station for an bioport install. The manager "Gas" says he's a big fan of Geller.
p28
Pikul agrees to get the bioport installed by Gas. Gas' done 2 before.
p29
They see a large, bizarre, non-functional insect outside the gas station. Pikul resists the final stage of the bioport install. Very funny line: "Yeah, all two of them."
p30
Following pressure from Geller, Pikul relents to the bioport install. (We learn later, this was planned all along.)
The install requires a temporary paralysis.
p31
Geller immediately wants to play a game with Pikul. Pikul plays coy but goes with it. She uses WD-40 (!?)
to help him sore back feel cold. (This seems like a ridiculous but minor plot point.)
p32
This somehow short-circuits Geller's port. Pikul "neural-surged". A disaster to Geller. "I was forced to trust you and you panicked and you neural-surged, and you blew my pod." she says. "Pikul, in this pod is the only, the original version of eXistenZ, an entire game system that cost thirty-eight million to develop, not including pre-release marketing costs."
pp33-34
Gas confesses it was his fault, not Pikul's, because Gas installed a "bad port" into Pikul. Also, Gas he wants to kill Geller for the 5 million dollar bounty, and destroy the game for a bonus. (This plot point could depend on Geller and Pikur trying to play a game together? If so, how could Gas expect this?) However, Pikul kills Gas at the last second.
pp35-36
Geller and Pikul leave the gas station in the Defender for a ski club, up a mountain road. Geller says "Nothing in the countryside is what it seems. It's all appearance versus reality." Outside the clubhouse, they see the same large bizarre insects as they saw at the gas station. Geller claims (or at least suggests) no one actually skis anymore, that it is all VR.
p37
Indeed, when they get into the clubhouse, the ski store has only very old supplies. They meet Vinokur. Vinokur claims to be on the side of Geller and wants to protect her. He seems connected to Antenna
Research somehow.
pp38-39
Vinokur tries to fix Geller and Pikul's port problem. Vinokur (painfully) pulls Pikul's bioport, and installs a new one.
p40
Geller convinces Pikul to try again and play existenz with her one more time.
p41
They port into a VR world. "The chalet melts away and is replaced by a scruffy game store." Cashier joins them in this world. Pikul and Geller become their game characters (though this is not revealed until later.)
p42
Exposition on the game. Geller says: "The beauty of eXistenZ is that it changes every time you play it. It adapts to the individuals who are actually playing it."
p43
They find a logo called "Cortical Systematics" for a game maker, or game system, and meet Dorsey Nader, at Dorsey Nader's Game Emporium. (Still at the Game store, no new slug.)
pp44-46
In the game store stockroom, they all start acting as their game character, in this strange VR world. Even their game characters have bioports.
pp47-49
Using their "miniports", they become more sexually aggressive and have sex (as their game characters).
pp50-51
At the "trout farm", Pikul works on a game-pod assembly line. As LARRY ASHEN, Pikul meets and YEVGENY NOURISH. Nourish repeats the line: "You might be new but you seem to know what you're doing." This indicates the odd world we are in now. Nourish suggests having lunch at the Chinese restaurant in the woods. Pikul agrees.
pp52-53
Pikul is told to go to the back room. There, pods very much like the one Pikul and Geller are ported into back home are being assembled. There, Pikul meets BARB BRECKEN, but her photo says she is Geller. They agree to have lunch at the Chinese restaurant in the woods.
pp54-56
At the Chinese restaurant in the woods, Pikul and Geller order "the special" from the Waiter. Pikul screams "eXistenZ is paused!" and the Chinese restaurant melts away. The guest chalet melts back up around them.
pp57-58
They argue about what is real. They return to the Chinese restaurant, where the "enjoy" their bizarre special.
pp59-61
Pikul's game character eats the disgusting food, using the bones to make an organic gun. Pikul kiddingly threatens Geller then shoots the waiter. A dog runs out from no where and takes Pikul's gun away.
pp61-62
Pikul and Geller escape through the kitchen, helped by Nourish. Nourish claims they passed his test and that the Waiter betrayed the cause. The three of them escape out the back door to a river running between the restaurant and the trout farm.
pp63-65
Along the walk, Nourish shows them strange creatures, mutated fish, amphibians, etc, used to make components for undetectable and hypoallergenic weapons. A glazed look comes over Pikul. He says robot-like: "Reality is threatened now more than ever. It is being eroded and it is washing away in the deforming storm of non-reality, which masquerades as reality, and eventually replaces it." Then Nourish smiles and hugs Pikul. Nourish says Geller and Pikul are "true and trustworthy Realists." After Nourish leaves, Pikul says to Geller, "Are the Realists the game-life version of the Anti-eXistenZialists, desperately want to kill you?" We also learn that Cortical Systematics (in the VR game world) is equivalent to Antenna Research in the real world.
pp66-68
At the game store, Pikul and Geller see a Cortical Systematics logo and pretend to examine the merchandise, while they look for Nader. They ask the cashier about Nader and he takes them to the stockroom, where they find Nader dead. The cashier says that they should not have killer the waiter, as he was their contact at the Trout Farm. "A damn good man." The cashier tells them that Nader was a mole for Cortical Systematics, and that Nourish is a double agent for Cortical Systematics. The cashier is a Realist, and is forbidden to have a bioport. The cashier tells them to look for a wicker basket at the trout farm.
pp69-71
The game store melts away and is replaced by a ski chalet. Vinokur knocks at their door and they let him in. He brings food. Vinokur tells them about the increasing number of anti-game fanatics.
pp72-73
Pikul guesses that Vinokur is going to turn Geller in to Antenna. Geller begs Pikul to play eXistenZ with her one more time. They do and the ski chalet melts away, and becomes the trout farm.
pp73-74
Pikul and Geller, once again wear their ID cards which identify them as LARRY ASHEN and BARB BRECKEN. Pikul says: "I don't like it here. I don't know what's going on. We're blundering around together in this un-formed world, whose rules and objectives are largely unknown, seemingly indecipherable, or even possibly non-existent, always on the verge of being killed by forces we don't understand."
pp74-77
They spot Nourish in the distance but don't find the wicker basket the cashier told them about. they go to another room, the last assembly bay, where they see a large, moldy wicker basket in the opposite corner. In the basket is a purpled, very diseased-looking game-pod. Geller plugs it into her bioport (against Pikul's advice). She immediately senses something wrong but Pikul is unable to unport her. "Pikul seizes a crude linoleum knife used for trimming oversized motherboards and, with three erratic slashes at the quivering UmbyCord, hacks her loose." Geller says "I'm bleeding to death." Nourish arrives and burns the purple game-pod. "The death-pod now swells and bubbles under the torch's flame, then explodes with a dull whump."
p78
Geller suddenly picks up the linoleum knife and lunges at Nourish driving the rusty, curved blade into his back with great force. As he dies, Nourish says "death to the demoness Barb Brecken" (Geller's game character). All four walls of the assembly bay are on fire (that caused by Nourish's torching). Then, the Trout Farm and its flames melt away, and the ski chalet melts up around them.
pp79-80
Geller and Pikul are in bed together. Geller awakes and says "We brought it back with us from eXistenZ. ... We brought the disease back with us. My pod is diseased. ... I'm going to lose my game! Unport me!" Pikul unports her and asks "How can a game event emerge into real life?" Geller injects her game-port with an anti-viral serum.
Then Geller claims Vinokur gave Pikul a new bioport. One that was infected, causing Geller's game-pod to die and so her game system.
pp81-83
Geller says "I'm going to seal up your bioport with this anti-viral resonator." She injects him, then says her game-pod's dying. Pikul asks Geller if she thinks Vinokur is an agent of the Anti-eXistenZialists. There is an explosion in the nearest chalet blows the windows and the door out of the guest chalet. The cashier, cradling a real-life submachine gun in his arms, steps boldly in through the doorway.He says "The uprising has begun! The whole place is on fire! Let's go! You've got to get out of here. They'll be looking for you." The cashier unslings his submachine gun, cocks it, and blows Geller's game-pod into streaks of slime, flesh, etc. The 3 of them leave the chalet. As they flee, they realize that all the chalets are on fire. The cashier leads them up to the top of a hill.
p84
At the top of the hill, Cashier says they are witnessing "The victory of Realism." Geller counters, they are witnessing "The death of eXistenZ." Cashier turns on her with his gun. He says "How could Allegra Geller, the world's premiere game designer, be on our side? Oh, yes, we know who you are. You can't hide inside a game forever." The cashier raises his gun to fire at Geller, but Vinokur shoots him with Pikul's gun assembled in the Chinese restaurant.
pp85-88
Vinokur says he has saved her game. He asks her to please come over to Cortical Systematics. Geller doesn't believe him. Pikul says "Wait a minute. Cortical Systematics is just the qame version, it's only..." Vinokur ignores him. Geller gets cashier's gun and opens fire at Vinokur. Pikul, upset, says "What if we're not in the game anymore? ... If we're not, then you just killed someone real."
Pikul admits he's an Anti-eXistenZialist, an enemy. Geller pulls out tiny electronic remote controller from the pocket of her shirt. She says "Understand that I suspected who you were from the moment you made that fake phone call to yourself in the limo. Understand that I knew you were my real assassin when you pointed the gun at me in the Chinese restaurant." Geller flips the toggle switch, killing Pikul.
pp89-91
We melt back up into the church, which we last saw in the first scene. However, all the character are now present.
Pikul is sitting next to her, next to him is Nourish, Nader, the cashier, Dichter, Gas, Vinkokur, even Frances, the limo driver. The players are all emerging from a game that has just ended - the movie we have been watching - and they begin to stir in their game gear. Also monitoring the action is a woman, Merle, who is the game's actual project manager - the real-life version of the game-character Levi. A broadly smiling Merle mounts the dais and stands in the center of the ring of players. She says "Are you all back?" Some make jokes about their game characters. For example, Gas says "Well, you know, I'm a gas-jockey in real life, so I was kind of disappointed that I was basically the same thing in the game. A little more fantasy, there, fellers." However, the gamers all compliment to Pikul and Geller.
pp92-93
Merle mentions TranscendenZ by PilgrImage game modules. Shyly, Geller says "I'd just like to say thank you to
Mr. Nourish for giving me the chance to play the role of a star designer. I guess the game picked up on my ambitions to be like you." Geller blushes. She reaches out for Pikul's hand. Merle says " Well, what do we say to our brilliant, award-winning game designer, Yevgeny Nourish? Does he have another winner on his hands or not?"
pp94-98
Nourish tells Merle privately, "Merle, I was very disturbed by the game we just played. ... it had a very strong, very real anti-game theme. ... there was a kind of industrial espionage subplot. ... I think we might have been infiltrated here, and if we have, we've got a big security problem." Pikul and Geller approach. Pikul says "We've played your game now, and so we can finally agree with the others that you are the world's greatest game artist." Geller says "Yevgeny, don't you think you should suffer for all the harm you've done, and intend to do, to the human race?" Geller reaches down and ... reveal two semi-automatic pistols ... Pikul and Geller grab the guns, pull back the slides, and coolly execute Merle and Nourish".
In their escape, they pass the waiter, who asks "No, wait, you don't have to shoot me. I just wanted to ask you a question. ... Are we still in the game?" Pikul and Geller look at each other, then into the camera. The church melts down around them into blackness.
