Cinematical

There are many horror films that turn millions of dollars into pretty much nothing -- Pulse, FearDotCom, Virus -- and there are also, conversely, horror films that turn pretty much no dollars into pretty much nothing -- Cabin Fever, Cube and many more. One of my favorite scary movies, though -- and an infamous example of how low budgets don't have to mean lowered tension -- is David Cronenberg's Shivers (aka The Parasite Murders or They Came From Within). It's Cronenberg's first full-length film; released in 1975, it was made in part with Canadian tax-subsidized arts funding, leading to a superbly inflammatory headline about the movie from Canadian journalist Robert Fulford: "You Should Know How Bad This Movie Is; After All, You Paid For It."

Fulford was probably reacting to the fact that Shivers is an impossibly disturbing horror flick -- one I describe as " ... having a thousand dollar budget and a billion dollars worth of crazy." It's one of those rare movies where the economy of the production doesn't make the movie shabby, but, rather, exceptional: Taking place mostly within the confines of the Starliner apartment complex in Montreal, Shivers opens with a smooth detached voice explaining the Starliner's amenities over a slideshow: Located on its own island, yet close to Montral proper; restaurants, shops and even a doctor are all available for the residents; the building is close to modern life, yet oh, so far away. And the hair on your neck stands up just a little touch. ...
And then things get worse with a bang; Cronenberg pretty much leaps to a sequence where we see an older, academic-looking man fighting with a young girl -- brawling would be the better adjective -- until he kills her. It's primal and fierce ... and, it turns out, more than a little justified. Starliner M.D. Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton) and his pathologist pal Rollo Linsky (Joe Silver) put together the fact that the elbow-patched gent we saw slaying in the opener was actually Dr. Emil Hobbes (and there are no coincidences in Cronenberg names), an expert in parasites. Hobbes was working on a new project -- namely, as Linksy explains it by reading from the Doctor's journals: "... a disease to save man from his mind. ... "

It turns out that the young woman the Doc was killing earlier was Annabelle Horsefield -- young, attractive and host to one of Doc Hobbes' custom parasites. Hobbes knew he had to stop Annabelle's parasite; he didn't know that Annabelle had a pretty full dance card ... and has infected other residents. Isolated location; a simple premise whose pseudo-science elements are set hard, fast and early on; the Id unleashed by "a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease. ..."

I mean, come on, what more do you want in a horror film? And Shivers goes places most other horror films don't get within a hundred miles of, in terms of sheer ugly Darwinian/Freudian stuff like sex and urge and death and loss of control. Why is Shivers a guilty pleasure? Well, it's got a bunch of non-actor actor performances in it -- when your biggest name is Barbra Steele, you know you're in trouble -- and the effects are cheap, cheap, cheap. But even with poorly-handled parasites, Shivers is a grim, gritty no-holds barred affair that will have you queasy and riveted, a pure descent into a clamoring flesh-crazed hell-orgy as one by one, the Starliner's residents are trapped ... and in a curious way, liberated. Every time I think of Shivers, it hits me hard ... and how rare is it to find a horror film that actually, yeah, horrifies?

(Shivers is available wherever DVDs are rented or sold.)