Movie review of Shivers

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Horrorphile - May 2007

Shivers

May 22nd 2007 05:06

“Everything is erotic … everything is sexual. You know what I mean? Even old flesh is erotic flesh. Disease is the love of two alien kinds of creatures for each other. Even dying is an act of eroticism. Talking is sexual, breathing is sexual. To even physically exist is sexual.”

Writer/director David Cronenberg’s first commercial feature, Shivers (1975), set the unique tone of many of his films to come: rampant body horror. And despite its production value shortcomings, it’s a remarkably intense and resonant film; a pseudo-intellectual shocker for psycho-sexual deviants.

Dr Hobbes (Fred Doederlin) and Annabel (Kathy Graham)

In the stylish, but sterile, new apartment building Starliner, on an island compound near Montreal, a crazed man (Fred Doederlin) attacks a high school student (Kathy Graham), in what appears to be a sexual assault. He strangles her and then administers crude surgery upon her, slicing her open and pouring acid into her stomach region. It’s a shocking scene in many ways, and was particularly confronting back when the movie was first released!

Nicolas (Alan Migicovsky) has trouble sleeping

It turns out the man was a scientist experimenting with a kind of parasite designed to enter the body and replace faulty or diseased organs; however the creation has turned into a monster, and that monster has multiplied ten fold, and while the libidinous chaos riegns the entire apartment complex becomes infected, with the parasites turning the hosts into deranged, homicidal sex-fiends!

Betts (Barbara Steele) has a bath ... uh-oh!

Cronenberg wrote and filmed the movie under the B-movie title Orgy of the Blood Parasites. It was first released in Canada as The Parasite Murders, but did much better business under the Canadian-French title Frissons. The film’s executive producers decided to re-title the movie Shivers (the English language translation). In the U.S. the movie was called They Came from Within (tying back in with the B-movie reference).

U.S. movie poster as They Came from Within

Shivers was produced for $179,000 (Canadian dollars), and it shows, but Cronenberg was always used his budgets shrewdly, and despite the movie’s low budget constraints, Cronenberg instills a strong intelligence into the movie’s overall themes and conceptual ideas. The tone is serious, despite the absurdity of some of the situations. And the movie’s frenzied finale is a most unsettling and apocalyptic denouement.

The acting is wildly uneven; one of the leads Paul Hampton, who plays Dr. Roger St Luc, is utterly terrible, mumbling his lines and smirking at the most inappropriate moments (was Cronenberg not watching the monitor??), however four of the other support actors manage to cover his performance atrocities; Allan Kolman (billed as Alan Migicovsky) as Nicolas Tudor, whom spends the majority of the film in a parasitic-induced stupor, yet still out-performs Hampton!

Roger (Paul Hampton) tries his very best to look concerned

Lyn Lowry plays nurse Forsythe (recognisable from her role as a hooker victim in the 1982 remake of Cat People) who manages to survive for much longer than one anticipates. Joe Silver has one of those craggy faces and voices you can’t help but empathise with. He plays Rollo Linsky, who understands the situation better than anyone else (doesn’t help the poor bastard though, he suffers terribly for his savvy), and Barbara Steele, famous from Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1961) plays resident lush Betts.

Nicolas Tudor (Alan Migicovsky) has a little stomach trouble

Joe Blasco’s use of the bladder prosthetic effect pioneered by Dick Smith in The Exorcist (1973) is used to great effect in Shivers with convincing shots of Nicolos Tudor’s pulsating naked hairy torso, apparently Smith was genuinely alarmed when he first saw the movie, as it become obvious that Blasco had invented the same procedure almost at the same time as he.

Bloodlust!!! David Cronenberg cameo on left

Shivers is a most interesting movie in that it has spawned numerous similar-themed movies; that of an alien-like infection transporting itself from body to body via human orifices (sexually-charged symbolism) and resulting in a plague of corrupt flesh. At one festival Cronenberg was accused of ripping off Alien (1979), until he bluntly stated that Shivers has filmed five years earlier. Even Martin Scorsese has expressed how impressed, yet utterly disturbed he was by the film’s suggested cataclysmic end (28 Days Later anyone …?)

In a recent Fangoria article it was mentioned that an upcoming film production company has secured the rights for a remake. Now, you know how uptight I get about remaking cult classics, yet I can appreciate the possibility of remaking Shivers, mostly because the performances could be much stronger, and with special effects where they’re at these days, the slug-turd parasites and general bloodletting could be engineered a lot more convincingly. But whoever directs the remake must throw caution to the wind, as Shivers is not for the easily offended, its subversive vampire-like shenanigans must employ a bite bigger than its bark.

Here's an original teaser trailer:

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Comments

15 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Damo

May 22nd 2007 05:40

For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics

Wasn't there a movie released last year by the same name?

Comment by KylieW

May 22nd 2007 05:57

Celebrity Obsession

Never seen this flick, but it doesn't sound too bad at all. I like the stuff of Cronenberg's that I have seen.

Great review by the way

Comment by Bryn

May 22nd 2007 06:16

Horrorphile

Damo, you might be thinking of Slither ...? Which pays entertaining "homage".

Kylie, Shivers and Rabid (1977) would make a great Cronenberg double bill! Scope 'em out!

Comment by Damo

May 22nd 2007 06:29

For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics

Thanks Bryn
I stand corrected

Comment by charliesgirl_992000

May 22nd 2007 07:08

Histeries, Mysteries and what not
Lifes little slices
Mystical Creativity

as a remake, That would probably be pretty good. i enjoy scary movies.i'd go see it i'm sure. i'll watch for it!!
Tammy

Comment by Ruby

May 22nd 2007 08:28

The Rubik's Cube

Hmmmm..... ummmm.... uh..... hmmm......

Comment by Competitionqueen.com

May 22nd 2007 08:58

Some movies are worthy of a remake, some desperately require it. Slither falls into the latter. Bring it on

Comment by Bryn

May 22nd 2007 15:25

Horrorphile

But Slither was only made last year ...? And it's a kind of "remake" anyhoo, a spoof on all those B-style sf-horror flicks ... Remake it immediately you say?

Comment by Bryn

May 22nd 2007 15:26

Horrorphile

Ruby, you don't sound convinced ... lol ... what are you baulking at?

Comment by Miswanderlust

May 22nd 2007 16:21

Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy

Bryn
To me this movie... was a compulsive watch... so much gore, zombie like sexual deviants, but compelling...could not look away or turn it off... An OCD nightmare.
Mis

Comment by Nickoftime's Sanity Corner

May 22nd 2007 18:02

Bryn,

really liked this movie even though I thought it was sorta "B" grade gore and perversion...

Just my type of entertainment!

LOL

Great review!

Take care,

Nick

Comment by JohnDoe

May 22nd 2007 21:52

Film & TV on DVD

This is still one of my favourite Cronenburg efforts alongside Rabid.

Shivers is Unnerving, moody and unforgettable, I love its more complex concepts.

Comment by Bryn

May 23rd 2007 03:37

Horrorphile

Shivers and Rabid are very similar ... that whole apocalyptic lean ... Where other directors can't escape the low budget trappings Cronenberg manages to make his material rise above the shlock.

Comment by Ruby

May 23rd 2007 06:53

The Rubik's Cube

Bryn, Well... I dunno. Unconvinced I suppose. And thus, I don't think a remake should even be considered. Some things are better left as is. I agree that with today's technology, there'd be better blood & gore scenes. However, if the story line seems kinda hokey and scenarios are absurd... technology can't help no matter how advanced it is!

Comment by Bryn

May 24th 2007 05:28

Horrorphile

Fair call ... fair call.

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