Existenz

In the year 2030, ultra-sustainable biotechnological devices have replaced unsustainable electronic ones. Game pods present "UmbiCords" that attach to "bio-ports", connectors surgically inserted into players' spines. Two game companies, Antenna Research and Cortical Systematics, compete against each other. In addition, a group of fanatics called Realists fight both companies, decrying the "deforming" of reality by virtual reality games.

World renowned game designer Allegra Geller demonstrates Antenna Research's latest virtual reality game, eXistenZ, to a focus group. The demonstration is disrupted by a Realist named Noel Dichter, who shoots Allegra with an organic pistol he smuggled past security. As Dichter is gunned down, security guard and publicist Ted Pikul escorts Geller outside.

Geller discovers that her pod, which contains the only copy of eXistenZ, may have been damaged. Pikul reluctantly agrees to have a bio-port installed in his spine so they can jointly test the game's integrity. Allegra takes him to a gas station run by a black-marketeer named Gas, who deliberately installs a faulty bio-port into Pikul's spine. He reveals his intention to kill Geller for the bounty on her head, but Pikul kills Gas. The two lie low at a former ski lodge used by Geller's mentor Kiri Vinokur, who repairs the damaged pod and gives Pikul a new bio-port.

Testing the game, Geller and Pikul meet D'Arcy Nader, who provides them with new "micro pods," enabling them to enter a deeper layer of virtual reality. In the new layer they assume new identities as workers Larry Ashen and Barb Bricken in a game pod factory. Another worker in the factory, Yevgeny Nourish, claims to be their Realist contact. At a Chinese restaurant near the factory, Nourish recommends that they order "the special" for lunch. Pikul eats the unappetizing special, and constructs a pistol from the inedible parts. He impulsively threatens Geller, then shoots the Chinese waiter. When the pair return to the game store, Hugo Carlaw informs them that Nourish is actually a double agent for Cortical Systematics, and the waiter which Pikul murdered was the actual contact.

At the factory, they find a diseased pod. Geller connects it to her bio-port, planning to infect the other pods and sabotage the factory. When Geller quickly becomes ill, Pikul cuts the UmbiCord, but she begins to bleed to death. Nourish appears with a flamethrower and blasts the diseased pod, which bursts into deadly spores.

Geller and Pikul awaken back at the ski lodge, where they discover Geller's game pod is also diseased. Geller surmises that Vinokur must have infected Pikul's new bio-port to destroy her game, and she inserts a disinfecting device into Pikul's bioport. Unexpectedly, Carlaw reappears as a Realist resistance fighter and escorts Geller and Pikul outside to witness the death of eXistenZ. Before Carlaw can kill Geller, Vinokur, who is a double agent for Cortical Systematics, shoots Carlaw in the back and informs Geller that he copied her game data while fixing her pod; she then vengefully kills Vinokur. Pikul then reveals that he himself is a Realist sent to kill her. Geller, having figured out his intentions since he pointed the gun at her in the Chinese restaurant, detonates the disinfecting device in his bioport, killing him.

Suddenly, Pikul and Geller are seated in chairs in a small abandoned church, seeing rows of pews as they come to, together with all of the other members of the cast, all wearing blue electronic virtual reality devices. That whole story was all part of Nourish's new virtual reality game called transCendenZ designed by PilgrImage, which receives praises and admiration from the test group.

Nourish tells his assistant Merle that he feels uneasy, as the heavy anti-game plot elements may have originated from one of the testers's thoughts. Pikul and Geller approach Nourish and accuse him of distorting reality, before fatally shooting him and Merle, Geller screaming "Death to Yevgeny Nourish" and Pikul screaming "Death to PilgrImage, death to transCendenZ". As Pikul and Geller leave, they aim their guns at the person who played the Chinese waiter, who first pleads for his life, then asks if they are still in the game. Pikul and Geller stand together silently, not answering.

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The film's plot came about after Cronenberg conducted an interview with Salman Rushdie for Shift magazine in 1995. At the time, Rushdie was in hiding due to a fatwa having been put on his life, due to his controversial book The Satanic Verses.^[10] Rushdie's dilemma gave Cronenberg an idea of "a Fatwa [sic] against a virtual-reality game designer". Existenz was originally pitched to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but they did not green-light the film due to its complex structure.^[11]

This was Cronenberg's first original script since Videodrome.^[12]

• Christopher Priest wrote the tie-in novel to accompany the film eXistenZ, the theme of which has much in common with some of Priest's other novels.
• In 1999, a graphic novel credited to David Cronenberg and Sean Scoffield was published.

Berlin International Film Festival

• Won, Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution David Cronenberg^[18]
• Nominated, Golden Bear: David Cronenberg

Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival

• Won, Silver Scream: David Cronenberg

Genie Awards

• Won, Best Achievement in Editing: Ronald Sanders
• Nominated, Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design: Carol Spier, and Elinor Rose Galbraith
• Nominated, Best Motion Picture: David Cronenberg, Robert Lantos, and Andras Hamori

Golden Reel Awards

• Nominated, Best Sound Editing in a Foreign Feature: David Evans, Wayne Griffin, Mark Gingras, John Laing, Tom Bjelic, and Paul Shikata

Saturn Awards

• Nominated, Best Science Fiction Film (lost to The Matrix)

• Alternate reality game
• Game studies
• Simulated reality
• The Thirteenth Floor (1999 film)
• The Matrix (1999 film)
• Inception (2010 film)
• The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965 novel)
• Total Recall (1990 film)
• WarGames (1983 film)
• "Playtest" (2016 Black Mirror episode)