Shivers (1975)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

David Cronenberg

Writer:

David Cronenberg (written by)

Release Date:

6 July 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

T-E-R-R-O-R beyond the power of priest or science to exorcise.

Plot:

The residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are being infected by a strain of parasites that turn them into mindless, sex-crazed fiends out to infect others by the slightest sexual contact.

Plot Keywords:

Parasite | Apartment | Doctor | Apartment Building | Sex

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Paul Hampton	...	Roger St Luc
Joe Silver	...	Rollo Linsky
Lynn Lowry	...	Forsythe
Allan Kolman	...	Nicholas Tudor (as Allan Migicovsky)
Susan Petrie	...	Janine Tudor
Barbara Steele	...	Betts
Ronald Mlodzik	...	Merrick
Barry Baldaro	...	Detective Heller (as Barry Boldero)
Camil Ducharme	...	Mr. Guilbault
Hanka Posnanska	...	Mrs. Guilbault
Wally Martin	...	Doorman
Vlasta Vrana	...	Kresimer Sviben
Silvie Debois	...	Benda Sviben
Charles Perley	...	Delivery Boy
Al Rochman	...	Parkins

Also Known As:

Frissons (Canada: French title)
Orgy of the Blood Parasites (Canada: English title) (working title)
The Parasite Complex (Canada: English title) (working title)
The Parasite Murders
They Came from Within (USA)

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:R (Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Italy:T (DVD re-rating) | Australia:R | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:18 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:R (Manitoba/Ontario) | Finland:K-18 | France:-16 | Ireland:18 | Italy:VM18 | Norway:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:18

Filming Locations:

Île-des-Soeurs, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Company:

Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC)

Trivia:

Canadian journalist 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, but Cronenberg later said Fulford's attack on him also resulted in him being kicked out of his apartment in Toronto.

Goofs:

Continuity: Roger St Luc rings the old French couple from the lobby after being attacked in the basement. But we saw the manager cut the phone lines in the previous scene. Despite this, the French couple answer the phone and tell St Luc his girlfriend the nurse has left the apartment. But the reason she had left the apartment was because the phone had been cut off.

Quotes:

[Last lines]
[Radio programme tune]
Radio News Reporter: The time is 5.26 a.m. This is Gerald Keys with the Media Sculp sunrise news bulletin. There is still no confirmation by Montreal city police concerning alleged reports of a city wide plague of violent sexual assaults. The assaults, believed to have originated in the vicinity of Starliner Island...

Movie Connections:

Featured in "SexTV: Dark Desires: Sexuality in the Horror Film (#5.15)" (2003)

Night of the Orgies

***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Having felt that man has not lived up to his potentials since he's restricted by the laws imposed on him by society Dr. Emil Hobbs, Fred Doedrlein, has developed this parasitic type earthworm. The parasite when entering the human body, orally as well as sexually, will cause the person to drop all his or her inhibitions, as well as their pants and skirts, and let it all hang out attacking and raping anyone they come in contact with.

Having implanted his new "invention" on one of his patients Annabelle, Kathy Graham, Dr. Hobbs soon realized that he had created a Frankenstein monster! In a wild frenzy Dr. Hobbs strangled Annabelle in his suite at the Starliner Apartment Complex before , feeling a deep sense of guilt, slitting his own throat.

It turned out to be too late for the guilt-ridden Dr. Hobbs to stop the sexually transmitted plague that he created. It soon becomes evident that the parasite left the dead Annabelle's body and started infecting everyone in the apartment complex. Traveling though the air-condition ducts garbage disposal and plumbing systems of the apartment complex the parasite has easy excess to everyone living there. By the time the movie is over everyone living and working in the apartment complex had become a victim of the attacking parasite.

Both young and old, from pre-teenagers to senior citizens, people that were infected by the parasite became so horny and sexually aroused that they went on a full scale wild orgy by the time the movie ended. These uncontrollable sexual acrobatics not only spilled into the surrounding neighborhoods but city's and towns as well.

Even though the movie "They Came from Within" or "Shivers" was made some five years before the emergence of the deadly AIDS epidemic in the early 1980's its striking similarities to that both sexually and blood transmitted disease is absolutely amazing. The deadly parasite, like the AIDS virus, enters it's victim and causes him or her bodily defenses to totally collapses: It's there where the similarities between the AIDS virus and parasite ends.

The parasite soon causes its infected host to go out looking, like a vampire looking for blood to survive, for new victims and strikes out at anyone uninfected in a wild sexual frenzy. This ends up with the infected person implanting the parasite in his or her victims body to start the whole cycle, person to person transmission, all over again.

The film is a lot like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in that nobody knows who's been infected, like the people who's bodies were taken over by the body snatchers, by the parasite until it's too late.

The resident doctor at the apartment complex Dr.Roger St Luc, Paul Hampton, gets the lowdown to what exactly is going on there from his colleague Dr. Rollo Linsky, Joe Silver. Rollo had been working with the late Dr. Hobbs before he completely cracked up and killed, along with Annabelle, himself. It's later that Rollo himself falls victim to the deadly parasite when he's attacked by Nicholas Tudor, Allan Kolman, a resident at the apartment complex. Tudor had been infected by the parasite when, cheating behind his wife' Janine's (Susan Petie) back, he had a sexual tryst with Annabelle.

Trapped in the complex with its sex-crazed residents trying to both rape as well has induct Roger into their ranks has him make an desperate attempt to escape the fate that awaits him there. Roger tries to cross the causeway, connecting Starliner Island to the mainland, making a wild dash to both freedom safety.

*****SPOILERS****** It's then that Roger realizes just how helpless his both escape attempt and him warning the general public is! The cat, or parasite, is out of the bag, or plumbing system! And with it being able to greatly intensify man's most darkest and suppressed, through laws and religion, thoughts and taboos there's nothing on God's green earth, military medically or psychologically, that can stop it!