26 years after his movie Crash was booed at The Cannes Film Festival, the horror auteur is preparing to debut his latest controversial piece. Last time, it was graphic sexual scenes that caused a furore and Cronenberg promises “eroticism and sensuality” again – but of a very different kind. The movie stars Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart and Lea Seydoux and its director is fully expecting people to walk out, quite possibly in the first five minutes. WARNING: SOME DISTURBING IMAGERY

This time, the subject is body modification, in a disturbing future where “surgery is the new sex.”

Cronenberg said: “I do expect walkouts in Cannes, and that’s a very special thing. People always walk out, and the seats notoriously clack as you get up, because the seats fold back and hit the back of the seat. So, you hear clack, clack, clack.

“Whether they’ll be outraged the way they were with Crash, I somehow don’t think so. They might be revulsed to the point that they want to leave, but that’s not the same as being outraged.”

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The film follows a performance artist played by Mortensen, who starts to “publicly showcase the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances.”

When an agent for the National Organ Registry, played by Stewart, starts to investigate, she uncovers a mysterious secret group who are involved in the “next stage of human evolution.”

As for the sexual angle, Cronenberg assures that it will be just a bizarre and challenging for his audiences as ever.

He said: “I mean, there’s eroticism and there’s sensuality, but of course, part of what the movie says – and one of the characters says it very straightforwardly – is that surgery is the new sex.

“If you accept that, then, yeah, there’s sex in the movie, because there’s surgery! So, people might be put off by that.”

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE IS OUT ON JUNE 3 IN THE US. UK RELEASE DATE TBC