One of David Cronenberg’s favourite poems is The Flea by John Donne:

‘Marke but this flea, and marke in this,

How little that which thou deny’st me is;

It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea, our two bloods mingled bee.’ 

It is an idea that would appeal to a film maker who started his career with a film, Shivers, about sexually transmitted parasite slugs, and whose most recent film ended with the death of two gynaecologist twins. For Cronenberg, the idea of two bloods mingling is no mere conceit: in