Trivia for
Shivers (1975) More at IMDbPro »

• According to Lynn Lowry, the shoulder that Nurse Forsythe stabs with the fork is actually that of David Cronenberg. A pad was inserted under Cronenberg's shirt for Lowry to stab, but, unfortunately, she missed and hit Cronenberg's real shoulder instead.
  
  
• Susan Petrie was unable to cry, so David Cronenberg used onions to help her produce tears. This worked, but the camera was out of focus when the scene was shot, and because Cronenberg was out of onions, Petrie gave her consent to let him to slap her on the face. He did so until her face was numb from all the takes. He finally settled for a series of takes he found to be less than satisfactory.
  
  
• 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 movies, Cronenberg later said that Fulford's attack also resulted in him being kicked out of his Toronto apartment.
  
  
• This film was shot in fifteen days.
  
  
• David Cronenberg cast Lynn Lowry as Nurse Forsythe because of her haunting eyes and strange screen presence.
  
  

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