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Each of director David Cronenberg’s works has stood out from the pack by featuring extremely explicit carnage and his obsession with bodily mutations. While many of Cronenberg’s films, such as The Fly and Eastern Promises, have reached wide audiences, one of his that didn’t is actually my favorite work of his. The 1988 movie Dead Ringers is Cronenberg at his best, perfectly mixing drama and horror.

In classic Cronenberg fashion, the film follows the lives of identical twins Beverly and Elliot Mantle (both played by Jeremy Irons), who are both gynecologists. The two believe in sharing everything, and since no one can tell them apart, they share women. However, when one of the brothers falls in love with one of the women, Claire (Geneviève Bujold), they stop sharing. This then turns their lives upside down when the brother dating Claire wrongly believes she cheated on him and becomes addicted to prescription pills. The lives of the twins continue to snowball until they reach a breaking point, where they have to either save themselves or succumb to addiction.

At first, people might find it hard to get into the movie because frankly, you might get confused. Beverly and Elliot are so similar that their first few scenes together can make you want to rewind and understand what’s going on. Eventually, Jeremy Irons will win you over with his astounding performance, and you’ll tell them apart with ease just by the way he carries himself.

Like much of Cronenberg’s works, this film does feature explicit gore and sex, but oddly enough, I find this to be his most heartfelt film.