David Cronenberg has long been one of our most provocative filmmakers, and at 82 years old, he's still pushing buttons.

But in "The Shrouds," his latest dive into the nether regions of the human psyche, his ideas carry more weight than the story built around them.

Vincent Cassel plays Karsh, who looks and is styled almost exactly like Cronenberg. Get a load of what he does for a living: He's the proprietor of an emerging technology, GraveTech, which essentially provides a livecam so people can look inside the graves of their loved ones and watch them decay in real time — at 8K resolution, no less. And you thought Cronenberg had maybe softened in his latter years.

Karsh is mourning the loss of his wife, Becca, who died of cancer and is played in flashbacks by Diane Kruger in a largely unclothed performance. Kruger also plays her sister, Terry, the ex-wife of Karsh's tech-savvy pal Maury (Guy Pearce), and she voices Hunny, Karsh's AI assistant, who's like a flirty, animated version of Siri.

When a series of GraveTech gravestones at Karsh's cemetery are vandalized, including his wife's, there are several potential culprits. This is where "The Shrouds" gets tripped up in a series of soap opera-like twists and turns, and it's better when it's exploring themes of tech, death, grief, sex, sadness and betrayal than it is in connecting plot dots.

As grim as it sounds, "The Shrouds" is often quite funny, and playful in how dark it's willing to go. And its text is rich with references to Cronenberg's life, both personal and professional: His own wife died of cancer in 2017, and a character is talked about as having "made a career out of bodies," much like the director himself. (Even the name "Karsh" is extremely close to "Crash," Cronenberg's notorious 1996 erotic thriller about the intersection between sex and car wrecks.)

Cassel and Kruger give haunting, strangely electrifying performances in this flawed but affecting work. "The Shrouds" casts an odd spell: Its details fade away, while its essence lingers.

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'THE SHROUDS'

Grade: C+

MPA rating: R (for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, language and some violent content)

Running time: 119 minutes

How to watch: in theaters

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