Shivers (1975)

(Criterion Streaming, January 2020) I would expect a mid-1970s horror film to be fairly tame, but that’s not a word to apply to writer-director David Cronenberg’s early-effort Shivers. Narratively, it’s basic horror stuff—scientific experiments, parasites, violently-sex-obsessed victims, gruesome deaths, an epidemic raging out of control: We’ve seen all of this before and since then. But Cronenberg tackles this project with youthful energy, and the film is far more aggressive in its execution than you’d think, even with unconvincing special-effects work and muddy nighttime cinematography. For Cronenberg fans, it’s an opportunity to see him work with the raw materials that he would later refine: the off-putting sexual content, the gory body horror, the sense of a normal situation terrifyingly turning out of control. It’s a bit of a laugh to see such a horror film explicitly set in Montréal (specifically on L’île des soeurs), with very typically 1970s Quebecker background actors. So, Shivers may or may not be familiar, but it’s rather well done for its budget class and technical limitations of the time. Not essential viewing (except for Cronenberg fans and anyone interested in tax-shelter-era Canadian exploitation films) but still watchable.