Themes: Plagues and Epidemics, Dangerous Attraction
Main Cast: Paul Hampton, Joe Silver, Lynn Lowry, Alan Migicovsky, Susan Petrie, Barbara Steele
Release Year: 1975
Country: CA
Run Time: 87 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A gripping exercise in body horror and social paranoia, prolific Canadian director David Cronenberg's debut feature offers a startling look at modern isolationist society with a parasitic twist. When a scientist experimenting with a new form of organ transplants kills a young female resident of a fortress-like apartment complex before subsequently committing suicide, the investigation into her death leads to a frightening discovery. Originally conceived by the misguided scientist in a bid to aid organ transplant, an overzealous parasite quickly escapes into the complex in search of a host. One by one, the unsuspecting residents fall prey to the parasite, and the result is an aggressive horde of sex maniacs who will stop at nothing to satisfy their primal lust and pass the infection on through sexual contact. When the resident doctor learns the sinister truth behind the malevolent creation, only one man stands between an apartment complex overflowing with id-driven zombies and the outside world. Will he be able to stop the rapidly spreading parasite before it escapes into society, or is it only a matter of time until he, too, falls prey to its rapturous effects and gives in to the temptations of the flesh? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Review
Like George Romero, on whose Night of the Living Dead this film so successfully riffs, David Cronenberg knew early on how to parlay low production values and genre conventions into artistic strengths. After turning out just two previous shorts, both of them experimental, the young Canadian writer/director released this smart, creepy feature in 1975. The typical arc of any sci-fi or creature feature is usually an initial shocker followed by slowly escalating suspense and climactic violence. They Came From Within follows that profile, but here, the horror isn't some threat from outer space or Transylvania, but the privileged characters' own postmodern isolation. At about the same time John Waters was churning out grotesquely amusing caricatures of the haute bourgeoisie, Cronenberg was attacking them here with tastefulness. The slowly paced, almost affectless early scenes depict the high-tech skyscraper as an urban environment divorced from all passion and nature, which makes the queasy special effects and sex-crazed chase sequences all the more delicious. Scream queen Barbara Steele and Canadian TV actress Susan Petrie were but the first in Cronenberg's long string of stellar leading ladies, but the spotlight here is on the ideas and the action, not the actors. Rarely has a horror film portrayed the ugliness of an era as subtly and unrelentingly as They Came From Within does in its clinical dissection of the empty, high-rise '70s. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Ronald Mlodzik - Merrick; Joan Blackman - Elevator Mother; Dorothy Davis - Vi; Arthur Grosser - Mr. Wolfe; Vlasta Vrana - Kresimer Sviben; Joy Coghill - Mona Wheally; Sonny Forbes - Garbage Room Man; Wally Martin - Doorman; Fred Doederlein - Emil Hobbes; Edith Johnson - Olive
Credit
Erla Gliserman - Art Director, Jean-Claude Malle - Boom Operator, Jim Thompson - Boom Operator, Diane Boucher - Continuity, David Cronenberg - Director, Patrick Dodd - Editor, Alfred Pariser - Executive Producer, Ivan Reitman - Musical Direction/Supervision, Suzanne Riou-Garand - Makeup, Joe Blasco - Makeup Special Effects, Paul Gravel - Camera Operator, Robert Saad - Cinematographer, Don Carmody - Production Manager, John Dunning - Producer, Andre Link - Producer, Ivan Reitman - Producer, Michael Higgs - Sound Recordist, David Cronenberg - Screenwriter, Stewart Harding - Production Assistant, Cliff Rothman - Production Assistant, Rick Maguire - First Assistant Camera, Yves Drapeau - First Assistant Camera, John Franklin Sawyer - Gaffer, John Daoust - Key Grip, Nolan Roberts - Re-Recording Mixer, Attila Dory - Still Photographer, Louiselle Champagne - Assistant Makeup, Tom Sawyer - Electrician, Josette Perrotta - Production Secretary
Shivers (filmed as Orgy of the Blood Parasites; alternate titles: The Parasite Murders, They Came from Within, and Frissons for the French Canadian distribution) is a 1975Canadianhorror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. Cronenberg won "Best Director" at the 1975 Sitges Film Festival.
Dr. Emil Hobbes (Fred Doederlin) is conducting unorthodox experiments with parasites for use in transplants, however, he believes that humanity has become over-rational and lost contact with its flesh and its instincts, so the effects of the organism he actually develops is a combination aphrodisiac and venereal disease. Once implanted, it causes uncontrollable sexual desire in the host. Hobbes implants the parasites in his teen-aged mistress, who promiscuously spreads them throughout the ultra-modern apartment building, outside Montreal, where they live. The community's resident physician, Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton), and his assistant, Nurse Forsythe (Lynn Lowry) attempt to stop the parasite infestation before it overwhelms the city's population.
About the film
The film's chaotic structure mirrors the collapse of residential life in the apartment block. The opening shows a young couple being welcomed as residents to the tower block, intercut with Dr Hobbes murdering his adolescent mistress by strangling her, then cutting open her stomach and pouring acid into her body to kill the parasites, and then cutting his own throat. Partway into the story, the audience learn the reason for Hobbes's actions; most of Shivers consists of social set piece tableaux showing the sexual promiscuity that spreads the parasites to the other residents.
Director Cronenberg said he identified with the residents after they were infected; and shows the swinging sterility of "normal" life mercilessly caricatured through the characterisation of the bland, rich, young professionals inhabiting the apartment block, and the hard-sell estate agent's sales pitch from Merrick (Ronald Mlodzik), which accompanies the opening titles.
Shivers was Cronenberg's first feature film, and was the most profitable Canadian film made to date in 1975, but was so controversial that the Canadian parliament debated its social and artistic value and effect upon society, because of a conservative magazine movie reviewer's objection to its sexual and violent content.
Controversy
The Canadian journalist, conservative Robert Fulford attacked the content of Shivers in the pages of the national magazine Saturday Night. Since Cronenberg's film was partially financed by the taxpayer-funded National Film Board of Canada (or NFB), Fulford headlined the article "You Should Know How Bad This Movie Is, You Paid For It". Not only did this high profile attack make it more difficult for Cronenberg to obtain funding for his subsequent breakthrough movies,[1] but Cronenberg later said Fulford's attack on him also resulted in him being kicked out of his apartment in Toronto.[2]
