Of the many memorable sci-fi, horror, and thriller movies by David Cronenberg, Dead Ringers (1988) remains the most intense psychological thriller with the most complex characters and themes. The story, scripted by Cronenberg along with Norman Snider, is said to be based partly on the real-life identical twins Stewart and Cyril Marcus who died together in 1975 in New York City. Twins dying together is a unique phenomenon as they are born together and in dying together, they defy the saying “till death do us part,” literally.

There’s much more to Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, though, than the commonly known concepts of togetherness and separation. The latter is given away by the movie’s tagline “Two bodies. Two minds. One soul.” The unsaid word that threads the three toge...

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