Halloween Film Recommendation of the Week: “Shivers” or “They Came From Within”

Written by Greg VictorcloseAuthor: Greg Victor Name: Greg Victor
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About: Greg Victor (Parcbench Culture Editor) is a historian, pop culture critic, and theatrical dramaturg and has stage managed theatrical productions on Broadway and on tour, including Billy Joel's "Movin' Out", Monty Python's "Spamalot" and more.See Authors Posts (97) on October 15, 2009

For my contribution to this month’s Parcbench poll of what is your favorite horror film. I choose “Shivers” (1976), written and directed by David Cronenberg (who would go on to direct many important films, including “Crash”).

The tagline for this Canadian horror film was “T-E-R-R-O-R beyond the power of priest or science to exorcise.” This was a blatant attempt to capitalize on the (then) recent popularity of the far-better “The Exorcist,” of course. But “Shivers” (or, “They Came From Within” as it was originally titled) was no “Exorcist.”

In an upscale fancy apartment complex near Montréal, a mad scientist tests a parasite in the body of his mistress. He thinks that human are animals that think too much, and he develops a parasite to increase the violence and sexual desire of humankind. (Just what the human race needs, right?) There is an outbreak in the condominium, resulting in everybody turning into mindless sex zombies. The goal of these zombies is to infect anyone who is not already infected, through sexual contact. Just as “Psycho” makes you feel unsafe in the shower, there is a bathtub scene in “Shivers” that is just as disturbing.

The movie is a tribute to George Romero’s classic “Night of the Living Dead,” but with a more contemporary sense of paranoia about it. It also anticipates the beginning of the AIDS epidemic as it views sexual promiscuity with potentially deadly results.

All in all, it fairly bad movie, cheaply done. But it is also a movie that you cannot easily forget. If you actually track it down on Netflix, I recommend you see it with a friend. Not because it is so scary, but because it is so creepy in a cheesy, this-can’t-be-real way. There’s something perfect about a horror film that is also just wrong in so many ways. This movie won’t make you scream, but I guarantee it will give you the shivers.