Long before the "metaverse" loomed over us, David Cronenberg's EXISTENZ (1999) imagined a completely immersive virtual environment that is even less cozy than our own. We discuss the film's porous boundary between reality and unreality, and explain why Cronenberg is one of the few Canadian filmmakers who really "gets" Canada. PLUS: Looking back at a moral panic over right-wing art from the early '90s.