SHIVER is a strange, low-key film which tries, somewhat unsuccessfully, to blend two genres into one. It starts off as a traditional ghost story, with a woman involved in an accident and subsequently finding herself subjected to out-of-body experiences in which she's accompanied by a ghostly girl and witnesses a string of murders committed by a vicious serial killer. The first half of the film is low key and unengaging, let down by Athena Chu's wishy-washy turn as the haunted housewife. I got the impression that Chu was struggling not to laugh during many of her so-called scare sequences, and sure enough a deleted scene reveals how many takes were needed before she managed to keep a straight face (the answer: lots). If the leading actress can't convince you then how's the rest of the film supposed to? Thankfully, things improve a notch during the second half of the production, when the protagonist dues shift over to Chu's cop husband, played by Hong Kong movie stalwart Francis Ng. The whole mood of the film changes tack, too, transforming from a slow-paced haunting affair to a suspenseful chase-focused thriller, with Ng hot on the heels of the aforementioned killer. There are car chases galore, stunts and as a whole the film is a lot more exciting and engaging. The acting isn't great – Ng is rather bland, although nowhere near as bad as Chu – but at least there's stuff happening. The ending, though, is a cop-out, hinging on a vital bit of information we aren't given until that point, which invariably left me feeling cheated rather than satisfied.
