Shivers (1975)

 

Shivers (1975)

 

“Sex was invented by a clever venereal disease.”

n A sign hanging in the background of one of the scenes in this film, and it kinda summarizes the whole movie.

“All my movies are comedies in one way or another.”

n Writer/Director David Cronenberg, being cheeky

 

We learn two important things about this film in its first ten-minutes, it’s a Satire, and it is going to be pretty Violent in the way it Satirizes stuff.

 

The opening images are an advertisement for the luxury Skyliner apartment block, minutes from the Montreal city center, but isolated from the Noise, Congestion, and Crime because it occupies an island in the St. Lawerance River. Life is Better there, Safer, more Civilized, because between you and the ugly Other is a bridge and you are perfectly insulated and surrounded by all the modern amenities. There’s a smugness in this Narration provided by Mr. Merrick (Ronald Mlodzik) which is an obvious warning that this Utopia is not going to work out well. The actual location was the Tourelle-Sur-Rive complex, designed by the famous Mies van der Rohe, and standing on the (because of this film) ironically named Nun’s Island.

 

Actor Mlodzik had previously starred in Writer/Director David Cronenberg’s two much-respected Student Films, “Stereo” (1969) and “Crimes of the Future” (1970). “Shivers” was Cronenberg’s first Commercial film and he later stated, “It was my pleasure to get him into a movie where he would be paid.”

 

Quicky, the Audience is introduced to minor Characters, the Svibens (Vlasta Varana and Silvie Debois), who are looking at an apartment in the buildings. Their tour, conducted by Merrick, is intercut with things happening fifteen stories above and behind closed doors; a middle-age man (Fred Doederlein) is strangling a teen-aged girl (Cathy Graham) to death. Post-mortem, the man mutilates the girl with Surgical care, then kills himself.

 

We aren’t at the heart of the story yet, which will get far more depraved, but a few things have been laid down already, and some of these things were nicely described by Critic Bob Stephens:

 

“Sterile-looking, de-natured domiciles promise safety for their inhabitants, protection from the hazards of urban existence. Layer upon layer of glass walls also symbolize the transparency of false emotions and the strange separation of people who live in proximity to each other.

 

“When security is violated and their living spaces are penetrated, the buildings' function is reversed: They no longer serve as fortresses and become, instead, inescapable traps. The huge structures have endless corridors, barren hallways like tunnels that turn back upon themselves, leading nowhere.”

 

This film shares much with J.G. Ballard’s SF novel “High-Rise,” and that carries with it some ironies. Director Cronenberg was a great admirer of Ballard’s work, he later adapted Ballard’s novel “Crash” (book 1973, movie 1996), but since this film and “High-Rise” were of the same year, direct influence was all-but impossible.

 

Then we’re then introduced to another couple, Nicholas and Janine Tudor (Alan Migicovsky and Susan Petrie), and take an instant dislike to Nicholas who is indifferent to his doting wife. It turns out the husband was sexually involved with the dead teenager and soon will learn so were a lot of other men in the building. Nicolas also appears to be coming down with a gastrointestinal illness. It is Nicholas who finds the two bodies (he has a key to the teenager’s apartment), but he chooses not to call the Police.

 

So, there’s a Mystery to solve, and it’s going to be ugly. Our Hero, Dr. Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton), doesn’t even appear onscreen until after the fifteen-minute mark and it is only after that do pieces fall into place, one-after-another, but not fast enough to save anyone.

 

It will emerge that the middle-aged man is Dr. Emil Hobbes and the teen, Anibelle, was his mistress and a Prostitute. When Dr. Roger sits down with Emil’s Business Partner, Rollo Linsky (Joe Silver), Rollo boasts that he and Dr. Emil were engaging in a pretty common type of Fraud, Emil was a genius at securing Grants for dubious projects, specifically engineering of a Parasite that could replace a failing Kidney, but then those monies were steered into more substantive and profitable work. As Emil was Rollo’s cash-cow, Rollo ignored that Emil was also Pedophile. Rollo is actually pretty casual about all this, even trying to recruit Dr. Roger while confessing all.

 

Too bad Rollo doesn’t know everything yet.

 

Later in the film, Rollo gets access to Dr. Emil’s bizarre notes, and realizes what Emil was really up to. Emil was a Mad Scientist who developed a Parasite in his Lab to trigger uninhibited Sexual Drives. Rollo describes all this over-the-phone to Dr. Rodger, “Now, Hobbes believed that man is an animal that thinks too much. ‘An over-rational animal that's lost touch with its body and its instincts.’ How do you like that? In other words, too much brains, not enough guts. So, what he came up with to help our guts along was a parasite that's, ‘a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease’ that will hopefully turn the world into one beautiful, mindless orgy."

 

Like all Movie Mad Scientists, Emil lost control of his Frankenstein, leading to the above mentioned Murder/Suicide, but by then, Anibelle had already infected plenty of other men, and our Hero, Dr. Rodger, is initially playing catch-up against an Epidemic he doesn’t even know exists. Though Emil’s Parasite is in way beyond then-contemporary possibility, or even now-contemporary possibility, but not beyond feasibility. That underlying feasibility makes everything creepier.

 

Dr. Emil was likely influenced by Real-World Dr. Wilhelm Reich, once considered Brilliant, the coiner of the term “Sexual Revolution,” but then spiraled into crazy ideas about “Orgon Energy” and Weather Control, got in trouble with the USA Federal Government over Quack Medical Devices, and died in Prison, while under Psychiatric Care, only days before he was likely to be paroled.

 

The film is unabashedly Disgusting, and sometimes Humorously so. On this now-cursed Island, across the few hours of a single evening, the Infection spreads and triggers an increasing Frenzy of Sexual Depravities and Violence as the Parasites compel their Victims to seek out new Victims. Coming only seven-years after the ground-breaking Gore of George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), the Goriest film many had ever seen up-to-that-point, it shares Romero’s sharp sense of Social Satire. It was also released into the middle of the cinema’s Grindhouse Era, where Depravity was King but Substance was not. This combination Substance and Depravity both appalled and confused almost all contemporary Critics.

 

There’s a very funny, but wholly icky, scene, where Nicolas starts vomiting blood, then pukes a Parasite over the side of his apartment’s balcony. The Parasite lands on an old lady’s umbrella who mistakes it for a dead bird that crashed into the building’s windows, “Poor little thing.” That Parasite isn’t dead though, it finds its way into the laundry room and jumps out of a washer attaches itself to the face of an old woman (Nora Johnson). The scene seems to have inspired part of Writer Dan O’Bannon’s script for “Alien” (1979) and later there’s also an early version of the notorious “chest-burster” scene from “Alien” as well.

 

That woman later attacks a Delivery Boy less than half her age (Roy Whitten). Then the Delivery Boy goes after a mother and child (uncredited). Then those three go after Merrick.

 

This film was cheap, originally budgeted at less-than $120,000, then ballooning, but still delivered below $175,000. The cheapness often, but not always, shows. The Creature Effects were done by Joe Blasco who had to be imported from Hollywood because, at the time, there were no experienced film FX men in Canada. “There had not been a serious horror film made in Canada.”

 

The Human mouth was clearly the Parasite’s favorite orifice for Infection, but there’s also flesh-crawling scene involving a woman (Barabara Steele) in a bathtub that proves the mouth is not their only option, and that scene also has been much mimicked in other films.

 

Dr. Roger is contrasted with Nicolas. Rodger is clearly Romantically involved with his Nurse, Forsythe (Lynn Lowery, who is notably never given a first name), but shows much of the same indifference to her attentions as Nicholas did to Janine. But Rodger’s indifference isn’t the same as Nicholas, a man with a wandering eye, Rodger proves to be, by nature, indifferent until the Zombie Apocolypse arrives. He’s sort of a Parody of the 1950s-style-Stoicism we’re supposed to expect from SF Heroes, so not only resistant to Forsythe’s Charms, but Rollo’s Corruptions, but in this context, it also means he lacks insight into our animal natures.

 

Director Cronenberg was pursuing Medicine before he switched to film, and his cynicism of the Profession is obvious in most of his movies. One perceptive plot point is that poor Dr. Roger never had a chance, his job was Diagnosis and Caring Giving, never putting a Genie back in a bottle, never managing Chaos. 

 

One Critic (I apologize for losing his name) observed, “I doubt Cronenberg intended to make any commentary on Canada's healthcare system. It does, however, speak volumes about our nation's biggest phobia: breakdown and disorder. That's why more than the excessive gore scenes of civilized men, women and children going apeshit in the corridors makes ‘Shivers’ truly scary and all the more Canadian. Call it our National Scream.”

 

The Critic seemed to be referring to a 1969 Police Strike in the same city, Montreal, remembered as the “Night of Terror” because in a twenty-four-hour period the famously safe city saw Homicides, Bank Robberies, and other serious Crimes sky-rocket. The very last scene of the film features radio-news reports unsubtlety echoing these earlier, Real-World, events.

 

Horror fiction is about Darkness, and Darkness is a place that we need to cast Light upon, so Horror fiction is important. But mostly we don’t want Horror fiction to do that, we want vicarious Thrills to make us less Afraid of the Dark, which is why Halloween Costumes are generally amusing even though so many of the costumes are of (fictional) Serial Killers.

 

The darkest part of Horror fiction that which looks into our personal Darknesses, our own Depravities, not that of the Threat of the Other. Most Horror fiction doesn’t really look there, it might pretend to do so, but there will be strange filters blocking any real Illuminations, and too often these filters backhandedly justify our own Darknesses and Depravities: That is why there’s so much Misogyny in the Genre even though men the most often presented Evil-doers and almost always women the Victims. Horror fiction is often about the Monster in ourselves, but do we really WANT to look at that in any serious manner?

 

Director Cronenberg has always looked hard at the Monster. This film is the ultimate anti-Love Letter to the Sexual Revolution, and it has some terrible things to say about us – that there is no Other, you have the same impulsive urges as all those we so easily Condemn, they’re just waiting to be let loose, making all of us closer to total Depravity than we want imagine.

 

Cronenberg is little impressed with the concept of Free Will, and most of his films would prove to be Dark Parables of our Biological Natures Dominating our Reason and Choices. Cronenberg’s SF/Horror is not only about the total Unleashing though, but also makes it clear that the Civility that existed before that Unleashing was just a Camouflage, and our Biological Natures rule us even when we say they don’t.

 

We understand that Dr. Emil and Nicholas were contemptable men even before the Parasites showed up. Before the Zombie Apocalypse shows up, Skyliner was demonstrated to be full of Pedophiles, Adulterers, Swingers, etc. There are two quick scenes early in the film where Dr. Roger walks through his waiting room on his way to his office: In the first a 70-ish old man is talking about Super Vitamins stop the aging process to a pretty girl in her twenties, he’s obviously hitting on her. In the second scene, his making the exact same spiel to another pretty girl in her twenties.

 

Cronenberg would eventually be highly praised with how he worked with his Actors, but that would evolve over time, and this is very early work for him. Always Misanthropic, he most often givens us extremely restrained Characters, almost like in a David Mamet play/film and, like Mamet, that restraint revealed great Psychological Depth. “Shivers” is a little too early to see much of that, and too many members of the Cast are not just restrained, but Zombie-like, while other more emotive Characters are clumsy. Though this is true of too many, it is not true of all.

 

Character Actor Silver as Rollo is incredibly warm and likable as he reveals what he tolerated from Dr. Emil. Also excellent was Actress Barabara Steele, a veteran of more Gothic Horrors, playing Betts, Character Janine’s confidant, and she has two of the film’s most memorably creepy scenes.

 

“Shivers” proved a huge success, bring in $5 million worldwide on a less-than $175,000 budget. Cronenberg was sure it could’ve done better, he thought the International Distribution by AIP was poor, and he may have a point; a key piece of evidence is that it went through several title-changes, including “They Came from Within,” “The Parasite Murders,” and “Fissions,” but I must say all these were better than the film’s working title, “Orgy of the Blood Parasites.” That title became a bit of an in-joke, used for parody purposes in Kim Newman’s novel of the same name (1994), wherein he vented his rage at Government Cutbacks in Education and the Incestuousness of Academic Politics … with Zombies of course.

 

When this film was released, there was nothing else at the time to compare with Cronenberg’s beyond-Swiftian Satirical Savagery. Putting the film in its historical context, the Scandal it generated is of great importance. “Shivers” was a “Tax Shelter Film,” one a gaggle of Canadian movies made between 1975 and 1982 wherein the Federal Government allowed Investors to deduct as much as 100% of their Investment in Canadian feature films from their Taxable Income.

 

There had been a recent turn-over in the management of the Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC, later Telefilm Canada) and a desperate push to make the Country’s crippled film industry more profitable. This move initially seemed successful as Canadian film production increased from three features in 1974 to seventy-seven in 1979 (Hollywood produced only about twenty-more features than that during the same year) and also increased the investment in the industries’ Infrastructure, trained more Skilled Craftspeople, etc, benefits can still be seen today.

 

On the other hand, the films mostly sucked, were generally indistinguishable from Hollywood product, and an embarrassingly large proportion were never distributed.

 

Cronenberg’s “Shivers” couldn’t be accused of most of the above sins, but still went out-of-its-way to piss people off because Cronenberg was so committed to “showing the un-showable.”

 

Critic Robert Fulford, using the alias Marshall Delaney, wrote a scathing review, “You Should Know How Bad This Film Is. After All, You Paid for It,” calling the film “an atrocity, a disgrace to everyone connected with it — including the taxpayers … If using public money to produce films like this is the only way that English Canada can have a film industry, then perhaps English Canada should not have a film industry.”

 

Fulford also tried to claim this film was not “Canadian” in character, which was nonsense. It displayed keen sense of the then-current trends in Canadian Urban Architecture and the map of the City of Montreal would provide a plot point, so one has to wonder what “Canada” he thought was worth looking at.

 

Fulford garnered enough attention to spark a furious debate in the House of Commons. There were even calls for the forcible Deportation of two of the film’s Producers, Don Carmody and Ivan Reitman, because both he had been born outside of Canada.

 

But “Shivers” was, ironically, the first feature to return its investment to CFDC. (Critic Fulford loudly denied this, but that denial is much dismissed.)

 

I would’ve defended the film then, as I do now, but there were solid arguments on the Blue-Noses side. “Shivers” was hard to take, getting Critical endorsement only far later. There were some films that even from the beginning were Critically acclaimed and Financially Successful, but not many. A number of the Critically acclaimed and Financially successful films were not especially Canadian in Character; an example would be Director Rob Clarke’s excellent “Murder by Decree” (1979), set in Victorian England. There were also a number of the Financially Successful ones that were Artistically bereft, bringing up another Rob Clarke film, “Porky’s” (1981) which must have pissed off many: Cronenberg’s Gore-filled Intellectual films were repeatedly the most Financially successful films in Canadian history, but “Porky’s,” a shallow Teenage-Sex Comedy set in Florida, USA, not only out-earned Cronenberg’s Controversial films, but held the title of Top-Grossing Canadian Film of All Time for literally decades. The fact was that the talented Clarke generally couldn’t get funding for his better films and eventually abandoned Canada altogether, something Cronenberg didn’t do. Cronenberg was on the verge of abandoning Canada until the CFDC money for this film came through, now, he’s a National Cinema Hero.

 

Wrote Critic Benjamin Wright, “By the early 1980s, the CFDC was renamed Telefilm Canada and largely avoided funding commercial film projects in favor of art-house fare that was just bland and safe enough to avoid criticism and “Canadian” enough – i.e., more Royal Canadian Mounted Police, fewer serial killer flicks.”

 

All film is about influences, and a striking thing about Cronenberg is that his influences are so diverse, and his focus is so on narrative, those influences are often hard to tease out. In that sense, he’s akin to Directors Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg, he eats at every table and mostly avoids Homages. Director Romero is obvious in this and Cronenberg’s next film, “Rabid” (1977), and yes, “Shivers” climax includes (unusual for Cronenberg) explicit Homages to Romero, but during the course of this film we also see static, one-point-perspective shots (a favorite of Director Steven Kubrick), frantic hand-help camera-work (borrowed from Cinema-Verti), and, surprisingly, a lot of Director Fritz Lang.

 

Lang’s most famous film is “Metropolis” (1927) which was about Class-Warfare, not much in evidence “Shivers.” But “Metropolis” is also about a Dehumanization inflicted on us by our Urban spaces and while “Shivers” set in the Contemporary, not Future like “Metropolis,” and radically different in Architectural-style, he still clearly pulled from Lang’s cinematic language to reach that shared goal. The connection between the films is undeniable once we reach the film’s spectacular climax. Another thing Director Lang was a Master of was what came to be called the “Architecture of the Body,” really his chorography of crowd scenes, and in both films that means the Mindless Mob, intrinsically connected with the Urban Dehumanization. Though “Metropolis” and “Shivers” had different Ideological Agendas, they were both fruits of the same aesthetic branch.

 

All of Cronenberg’s Horrors were rooted in SF and Abnormal Psychology, he never did a Supernatural Thriller. Except regarding abuses of Human Power, Cronenberg was surprisingly un-judgmental of his violent Monsters, but his contempt of Hypocrisy dripped from every film. He was constantly questioning the worthiness of the Society he Threatened. In an interview I can’t find, but have seen referenced by other Authors, Cronenberg admitted he only became sympathetic to his Characters after they became Infected.  And in a different interview, speaking the production itself, Cronenberg joked, "Living on Nun's Island [during the shoot], we all wanted to rip that place apart and run naked, screaming through the halls."

 

Which brings me back to Critic Fulford: How could he not see this? It’s fine that he hated the film, much of it is awkward, much of it is sloppy, but could Fulford not see that new soil was being plowed? How could he ignore that this was a Satire, whether-or-not he thought the Satire was worthwhile? Did he bother to sit in the theater long enough to view the remarkably staged climax? “Shivers” budget barely-more than one-ninth of that of the previously most expensive film in Canadian history, the now-forgotten “Kamouraska” (1973 and budgeted at $900,000) which proved a Critical and Financial disaster because it was (by reputation, I’ve never seen it) a shallow and conventional Soap Opera full of Knee-Jerk Idealizations of the past. “Shivers” would, eventually, become a Critical triumph (OK, that took a while) and a Financial one from get get-go.

 

And not everyone hated it when first released either. Critic Roger Ebert, often uncomfortable with Horror film, but proved an early, and surprising, champion of “Night of the …” offered praise to “Shivers.” Ebert was forced to see “Shivers” in a double-bill with the truly vile “Snuff,” a breath-takingly incompetent piece of Misogynistic, Grindhouse, Clap-Trap that was advertising itself as an actual Snuff Film. Ebert might not have been in love with what he saw here, he called attention to the poorer aspects of the production, but he was still impressed, granting it 2¹⁄₂ out of 4 stars because it, “becomes not only a replacement for ‘Snuff,’ but a rebuke.”

 

A few years later, Ebert would then savage Cronenberg’s far-superior “The Brood” (1979) which was more thoughtful, marginally less explicit, and far-better crafted. Well, what can I say? Ebert was Ebert after all.

 

Trailer:

Shivers (1975) TRAILER [HD] (youtube.com)