Shivers, also known as They Came from Within, is classic Cronenberg at its finest. Shivers will be terrifying to anyone who has ever lived in an apartment building. Cronenberg shows the cracks in the facade of urban sophisticated society until they open wide and consume whatever veneer of convention and rules remains. If you have any familiarity with Cronenberg, you may know that he enjoys ripping the facade that human beings are civilized or high-minded by revealing the organic, bloody, oozing and pulsing side of our bodies. Shivers implies a lot of horrifying things, but never actually shows it. Shivers’ narrative is a strong one. When Shivers starts, the images of civilization are interspersed with what seems like utter, random brutality, but as the story unfolds, it is revealed that this image of brutality was a futile attempt to save civilization. If you decide to watch Shivers, you will have to pay close attention because things are initially and wonderfully revealed in subtle ways in both dialogue and images. Shivers’ sound quality is poor so you may have to occasionally turn on the closed captioning. Shivers is prophetic considering that it unknowingly came out during the start of the AIDS crisis-parasite as a form of liberation and horror. There was only one image of using the parasite as a form of liberation whereas the majority of infections seem horrifying. I would love to know if Cronenberg was implying that St. Luc was in the closet, especially since he reacts quite violently to certain attempts of infection in contrast to his reaction to other infected, but especially because before there was any infection, he was quite impervious to advances from his sexy nurse who literally changes in front of him at the office (and has the best outfits in the film). I would not recommend it to those sensitive to sexual violence or easily grossed out. If Canadian Cronenberg was born in Japan, I don’t think that anyone could handle his films. If you ever wanted to know how a sex zombie would act, see Shivers.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

For the record, I understand that Nicholas Tudor was infected during the entire movie, but unlike most of the infected, I think that he was probably a jerk prior to infection since he stepped out on his wife and got infected in the first place. I hated him when he didn’t call the police upon discovering the first crime scene, every time he infected someone, refused to see a doctor then tried to force himself on his wife. I understand that it was probably a result of being infected, but considering that his wife and receptionist couldn’t tell a tremendous amount of difference between sick Nick and healthy Nick other than he was bleeding, I’m thinking that he was always an awful human being; thus making him a perfect host for phallic monsters. He is the mother of all monstrous dicks.