Raunchy 70s Sci-Fi Horror From Master Director Is A Deadly Experiment

By Robert Scucci
| Published 23 seconds ago

A fast-spreading parasitic infection that turns the entire world into one beautiful, mindless orgy may sound like a great idea on paper, but not if David Cronenberg has anything to say about it. His third feature, 1975’s Shivers, viscerally demonstrates exactly what could go wrong in this context, and how, if such a parasite were to run amok among the general population, nobody is going to have a good time. In fact, everybody is going to have a terrible time, because the friction involved alone will leave you feeling worse for wear.

Just watching Shivers in the comfort of your own home is an upsetting experience, which is par for the course with David Cronenberg. Since that’s the exact aesthetic he’s pursued his entire career, I can’t really fault the movie for doing what it sets out to do. I can only give it credit for being a raw, more extreme version of themes he’d later explore in films like The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, and beyond.

An Unflinching Exercise In Unwholesomeness

Shivers kicks off with a murder-suicide in which Dr. Emil Hobbes (Fred Doederlein) cuts open a young woman named Annabelle and pours acid into her stomach before turning the blade on himself, for reasons that are revealed much later in the film. The bodies are discovered by Dr. Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton), who learns from Hobbes’ colleague, Rollo Linsky (Joe Silver), that they had been working on a controversial study involving parasites engineered to act like replacement organs. The idea was that these organisms would dissolve damaged tissue and assume its function, but the results were far more volatile than advertised.

The B story in Shivers centers on Nick Tudor (Allan Kolman), who lives in the same building as the slain Annabelle, sees the crime scene before authorities arrive, and simply goes about his life as if he witnessed nothing. While his coldness seems callous at first, it’s soon revealed that Nick is suffering from convulsions caused by a parasite living inside him, potentially influencing his behavior. His wife, Janine (Susan Petrie), tries to care for him, but he downplays how sick he actually is until he can no longer hide it, resulting in him ralphing up the parasite, which looks like a writhing blood clot that slithers around like a slug.

Can’t Put The Cat Back In The Bag

Once Nick’s parasite is let loose in Shivers, all bets are off. Roger begins to suspect that Dr. Hobbes’ research is directly tied to the outbreak, a suspicion that’s confirmed when Linsky alludes to work involving the creation of a sexually transmitted organism designed to spread rapidly. The infected are transformed into libido-driven maniacs who feel compelled to feed the parasite and pass it along, ensuring the cycle continues to its most extreme end.

Escalating with each passing scene, the world that Shivers constructs becomes exactly what Dr. Emil Hobbes intended. Parasites are furiously transmitted, and those who are infected grow increasingly aggressive in their efforts to convert as many residents as possible before anyone can contain the spread.

If you’re a fan of Cronenberg’s later classics but haven’t yet familiarized yourself with Shivers, think of it as a low-budget, stripped-down preview of what his career would continue to refine once he had the clout and studio backing to fully realize his body horror ambitions.

With a reported production budget of $179,000 CAD, compared to The Fly’s $15 million, Shivers is distinctly a Cronenberg vehicle operating with limited resources. If anything, Shivers proves that all you really need is a twisted imagination, patience, and instinct to make an early effort stick. The film was warmly received by critics and currently boasts an 85 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Shivers is raw, uncomfortable, upsettingly violent, and exactly what you should expect from a young and ambitious David Cronenberg before he became a household name. If you want to see one of the earliest examples of his ability to thoroughly get under your skin, you can stream Shivers on Tubi for free as of this writing.