SLIDESHOW: A preview tour of the new David Cronenberg Exhibit at the TIFF Bell Lightbox

SLIDESHOW: A preview tour of the new David Cronenberg Exhibit at the TIFF Bell Lightbox

SLIDESHOW: A tour of the new David Cronenberg Exhibit at the TIFF Bell Lightbox

For over three decades, Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg has disturbed and delighted audiences with his uncanny knack for exploring (and exploiting) our most unsettling fears. Starting November 1, Torontonians can take a terrifying peek inside the mind that gave us The Fly, Dead Ringers and Videodrome. Cronenberg: Evolution, the TIFF Bell Lightbox’s first large-scale touring exhibit, tracks Cronenberg’s development from his initial big-budget flick, 1981 science-fiction film Scanners, to last year’s Don DeLillo adaptation, Cosmopolis. Divided chronologically into three sections, the exhibition includes over 60 props, costumes and artifacts (many of them salvaged from Cronenberg’s house and garage), including the hive-like telepod from The Fly and the six-foot-tall humanoid Mugwump from Naked Lunch. The exhibit is one of TIFF’s biggest, most ambitious and certainly most grotesque. Here, 15 photos from the delightfully chilling retrospective.   

Cronenberg: Evolution, November 1-January 19, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King St. W., 416-599-8433, tiff.net/cronenberg