The Shrouds had its world premiere in Main Competition section of the2024 Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2024. The film is scheduled to be released theatrically in France by Pyramide Distribution on April 30, 2025.[4]
Karsh, 50, is a prominent businessman. Inconsolable since the death of his wife, he invents GraveTech, a revolutionary and controversial technology that enables the living to monitor their dear departed's corpses as they decay in their shrouds. One night, multiple graves, including that of Karsh’s wife, are desecrated. Karsh sets out to track down the perpetrators.[5]
The concept was originally envisaged as atelevision series forNetflix, with Cronenberg writing two episodes before the plans were cancelled by Netflix.[6]
Saïd Ben Saïd andMartin Katz produced the film for Prospero Pictures and SBS International alongside co-producer Steve Solomos. The cinematographerDouglas Koch worked alongside art director Jason Clarke and production designerCarol Spier and costume designerAnne Dixon.[7]
In an interview, Cronenberg described the film as very "personal" and "autobiographical".[8][9] It is directly inspired by his own grief at the loss of his wife, Carolyn, who died in 2017.[10]
The film is set to be released theatrically in France by Pyramide Distribution on April 30, 2025, reportedly pushed back from a release in January, 2025.[4][21] Sideshow andJanus Films will release the film in the United States.[22]The Shrouds will open on April 18 in New York and Los Angeles, before expanding nationwide on April 25, 2025.[23]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 75% of 51 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "Ruminating on the love within loss,The Shrouds is a personal and peculiar examination of grief by director David Cronenberg."[2]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 59 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[1] The film was named to TIFF's annualCanada's Top Ten list for 2024.[24]
