Frissons

Shivers(1975) is a fascinating first film especially for a person who was learning to direct professionly on the job. An interesting part about this movie is that Cronenberg did Shivers(1975) without having a clue of what people in the film crew does or containing knowledge of film terms. The fact that he made a cult classic is a testament to his potential at the time to be an excellent movie maker. Shivers is basically the first horror film made in Canada as far as I know and David Cronenberg was the first director to open the flood gates for the horror film in Canada.

This motion picture mixes together the erotic with the zombie genre made famous by George Romero in 1968. In fact, there are many references to the zombie classic Night of the Living Dead. The movie is about parasites who enters people's bodies and turn them into sex maniacs. It dares to break many sexual taboos that many film makers would be afraid to explore.

Shivers would provide a starting point for some themes that David Cronenberg would explore in later films like Rabid(1977), The Brood(1979), Scanners(1981), Videodrome(1983), The Fly(1986), Dead Ringers(1988), and Crash(1997). The two themes are disease as the transformation of the body into the next state of evolution for the human being and the other theme of the outsider who does not understand why they are so different from other people. Barbara Stelle provided the movie with many memorable moments especially the infamous "bath tub" scene. It is a groundbreaking movie because it would become a source of many movie directors for the next two decades.

One great scene is the "bath tub" scene which is a classic example of building up suspense until the final moment when the scene ends. Another excellent scene is when the protagonist tries to escape outside and he goes back in as swarms of Sex zombies go chasing after him. I consider this movie the beginning of a trilogy I call the 'sexual evolution' trilogy. The trilogy starts out with Shivers(1975), continues with Videodrome(1983), and finishes with Crash(1997).

Shivers(1975) would be a major influence for the scifi-action thriller The Hidden(1987), especially with the idea of a parasite entering a person's body and changing their entire personal behavior. Also influenced by Shivers were the Alien series(especially Alien(1979) which was made four years after Cronenberg's directioral debut) and there are a couple of examples of this influence. First, the two movies involve parasites who go in and put out of a person's body as well as having acid for blood. Second, They both take place in an isolated and high placed area with Alien(1979) taking place on a spaceship in the middle of nowhere and Shivers(1975) takes place on a apartment complex called the Skyliner Towers on the middle of an island that is isolated from the rest of Canada.

If compiling a list of favourite directors, David Cronenberg if to be honest wouldn't be on it (having only properly started seeing his work fairly recently). If compiling though a list of the most fascinating and unique directors, he would almost certainly be on it and high up the more work seen of his. A vast majority of his films disturb in his use of imagery and make one feel uncomfortable with his tackling of challenging subjects, but as said in some of my other reviews for his films there is much more to his work than just full on horror as seen with him moving away from it in later years.

Cronenberg's feature film debut 'Shivers' is nowhere near among his best work (though nowhere near among his worst either), but for a film debut with limited resources despite flaws 'Shivers' is pretty impressive. The rest of the films that are part of his filmography are far more refined visually, explore their themes/subject much deeper and are far better written and acted. But every good/great director has to start somewhere and this impresses and interests, and even with the low production values it's fairly ambitious in its subject and for low budget. In terms of content, 'Shivers' is one of Cronenberg's more disturbing films.

There are issues with 'Shivers'. If there was an award for the worst-looking Cronenberg film, 'Shivers' in my mind would be an easy win. With the exceptions of the suitably freaky special effects and eerie apartment setting, this does fare pretty badly in the visual department and reminiscent of a very low budget television film. The camera work and editing are both rather slip-shod and like the makers were still experimenting when shooting and editing without having put much thought into what to do and when to do it. The sound is also amateurishly handled.

Another weak point is the acting. There are two exceptions, Joe Silver, who really does give it his best shot without over-compensating, and particularly Barbara Steele, whose experience in Hammer films is obvious. Other than that, 'Shivers' contains some of the worst acting in a Cronenberg film even for mostly non-big names. Paul Hampton is especially awful, who looked like he wasn't interested in the film at all (even Stephen Lack in 'Scanners' wasn't this bad). The script does have some very clunky moments.

However, despite all of this it is difficult to be too hard on 'Shivers'. As said the special effects are freaky, surprising as one does expect for minimal budget for the effects to be the worst part when it comes to production values, the apartment setting has real eeriness and Silver and Steele do well with what they have. Cronenberg gave himself a lot to take on and does so admirably, even if his style had not fully formed yet. Yet his style can still be found all over 'Shivers', with the famous themes and ideas often re-visited in later films present but much deeper and with more subtlety later on. Other parts of the script are darkly humorous and intriguing, like the flesh monologue.

What is particularly good here though in 'Shivers' is the atmosphere and the horror. Even by 2019 standards, 'Shivers' is still genuinely scary and even now is one of Cronenberg's most disturbing, old and new. The starkness evokes genuine chills, something that would be seen in his later films but much more technically advanced in them. There is a real sense of dread, with a lot of tension and suspense. The parasites are not seen a lot but really chill the blood when they do appear. A lot of the imagery is stomach churning, especially the bath scene which is one of the most frightening scenes of any early Cronenberg and overall Cronenberg perhaps for that matter. The claustrophobic climax is also unforgettable.

Summarising, very flawed but did give me the shivers. 7/10

Cronenberg's variation on the Zombie theme was his first full length feature film and for this it is surprisingly good.

From the technical point of view, it is very amateurish. The lighting and camera work are highly reminiscent of home made Super 8, and the sound is bad beyond belief.

Although the mindless creatures attacking anything that moves immediately recall the Zombies, Cronenberg's movie has some original ideas. In fact, watching German television these days, the subject of bored middle class diving into sex orgies (at least in their fantasy) seems more up to date than ever. Unlike Romero's Zombies, Cronenberg's creatures simply embark into endless sexual excesses, including minors. Indeed, one of the most scandalous scene shows two young girls on dog leashes, climbing up a stair and barking - unexcusable image!

The special effects in "Shivers" work very well and are more slimy, organic, and visceral than say Romero's, and give better testimony of the vulnerability of the human body. They set the tone for Cronenberg's use of gore in his subsequent films.

"Shivers" earned Cronenberg immediately the title of the "reigning king of shlock horror" - very appropriate.

SHIVERS (aka THEY CAME FROM WITHIN) is another pretty twisted outing from freak-o Canadian director David Cronenburg. SHIVERS is not nearly as memorable as some of Cronenburg's other works (VIDEODROME, THE FLY or my personal favorite - THE BROOD...) but it is still worth a look for anyone that is into Cronenburg's strange cinema.

SHIVERS is about parasites that enter their human hosts and cause them to do all kinds of strange sexual and violent things. Pretty cool concept that is handled well, and the film is both weird and entertaining as only Cronenburg can do it. Again, not the best of his films by any means, but still solid. Give it a shot - 7.5/10

Cronenberg's directorial feature film debut is built around a now-familiar amalgamation of sex, technology, and medicine gone mad. The Canadian "Shivers" (original American release title "They Came From Within", aka "The Parasite Murders") opens with a slide show advertising a creepily perfect-sounding high-rise apartment building isolated on an island but just minutes away from downtown Montreal. We are told that the complex contains practically everything necessary to maintain a comfortable life- medical and dental practices, clothing stores, a gift shop, a deli, recreation, etc. Ideally, it would seem, the only reasons a resident would leave would be to work, socialize with non-residents, or take a vacation, if that wasn't too redundant. But of course, something terrible is just under the polished surface.

Cronenberg's direction is obviously not as polished as in later features, but we begin to see his signature style translated well into a full-length format.