The less you know about this movie before seeing it -- and you really should see it -- the better.

Cronenberg's direction, mirroring the split in Tom, is alternately measured and frighteningly explosive, and, as always, he gives the movie a nasty underlay of sexual perversity.

This peculiarly predictable picture has been calculated, or miscalculated, to set up certain expectations, fulfill them, and then do the same thing again, thereby giving us a chance to see what's coming and, at least in theory, be shocked.

Smoothly-paced, profoundly quiet, and possessing bursts of disquieting violence, "A History of Violence" is as affecting now as it was in its original 2005 release, perhaps more-so in the current landscape of cinematic entertainment.