It seems that David Cronenberg knew exactly the kinds of movies he wanted to make right from the start. His debut feature film, Shivers, which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year, is filled with the hallmarks of classic Cronenberg. It deals in bodily invasion, the combination of the technological and biological, the tension between modern […]
Because of their hesitation, Cronenberg expected to have to make the film in the United States and even presented his script to various Hollywood studios including New World, who told him they would absolutely be interested in making the picture. Cronenberg, however, did not particularly like the Hollywood atmosphere and was very happy to hear that Dunning and Link decided to greenlight the film and had secured financing from the Canadian Film Development Corporation, now called Telefilm. Even this was a challenge as there was no real history of genre filmmaking in Canada at the time and the Canadian government was hesitant to use taxpayer money for such a venture as Shivers. Fortunately Dunning and Link were successful, and the film ended up making a profit for Telefilm and the Canadian taxpayer.
When pre-production began, Cronenberg quickly realized how little he knew about feature filmmaking, even for such a modestly budgeted film as Shivers. He credits Cinepix and especially John Dunning for his on-the-job training. “You couldn’t have a better film school,” he later said, “It was fantastic, and I learned so much from those guys.” Also in his corner was Cronenberg’s on-the-set line producer Ivan Reitman, who would achieve great success as a writer, producer, and director in his own right. When Shivers was complete, Dunning and Link had their film that could be distributed in the U.S. It was retitled They Came from Within, something of a misleading title considering the nature of the film’s parasites, but it garnered some success in the States as well.
Shivers includes many of the aspects that have been associated with Cronenberg throughout his career. Right from the start the film makes clear that it is a commentary on the nature of modern society, as exemplified by the introduction of the setting, Starliner Tower, a state-of-the-art apartment building boasting everything a modern human could want. It is the epitome of comfort and convenience with spacious rooms, on-site medical and dental facilities, and sources of food and entertainment. There is practically no need to ever leave or even interact with anyone unless absolutely necessary. It is also clear that Starliner Tower is cold and clinical, a stoic monolith with no character, feeling, or soul. The tower itself is a reflection of what modern humanity has become. In the world of Shivers, humans have become anything but human, simply empty shells who have shed the base instincts that have allowed them to survive for millennia. Now they merely wander through life with little real purpose. Humanity is a numb, dull reflection of what it could be.
Into this sterile world, an element of chaos is injected—a parasite that draws out the base instincts of whomever they infect. What is unique, and brings up another Cronenbergian theme, is that the parasite is manmade, created in a lab by Dr. Emil Hobbes (Fred Döderlein). So, in essence, they did not “come from within” but were created by a mad scientist and placed into someone—but “They Came from a Lab” isn’t much of a title. In the middle of the film, researcher Rollo (Joe Silver) explains Hobbes’s theories to Roger (Paul Hampton), the character as close to a hero as the film has. “Man is an animal that thinks too much, an over rational animal that’s lost touch with its body and its instincts,” which led Hobbes to create the parasite that is “a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease that will hopefully turn the world into one beautiful, mindless orgy,” alluding to Cronenberg’s original title for Shivers: “Orgy of the Blood Parasites.”
The various ways in which the parasites spread is where most of the horror, and frankly fun, of the movie comes from. In one scene Allan Kolman as Nicholas Tudor is seen talking to the creature inside him saying, “we’re going to be good friends,” as it burrows just beneath his skin. Shivers is also a very early film to employ “bladder” effects, a process generally thought to have been innovated by the legendary Dick Smith in which bladders, such as shaped ballons or (as was the case on Shivers) condoms, are inflated and deflated beneath a layer of foam latex to give the illusion of something moving beneath or misshaping skin. The sequence with Nick is absolutely chilling as it is clear that not only his body, but his mind is being taken over by the creature. This invasion is key to Cronenberg’s work as the foreign entity or contaminant is evocative of disease, especially cancer, which has been an element of his work all the way up to his most recent film, The Shrouds (2025).
The release of base instinct is almost always manifested in the form of sexuality in Shivers with just a few exceptions. The first person we see, beyond the original host, infected with the parasite calls out to her victim “I’m hungry for love!” In one of the film’s best scenes, Nurse Forsythe (Lynn Lowry) lays out the thesis not only for Shivers but for much of Cronenberg’s filmography in what has become an iconic monologue about a dream she had in which an older man tells her:
“Everything is erotic…everything is sexual…He tells me that even old flesh is erotic flesh, that disease is the love of two alien kinds of creatures for each other. That even dying is an act of eroticism, that talking is sexual, that breathing is sexual, that even to physically exist is sexual.”
This can be expanded to other films as well. Videodrome (1983): “television and media are sexual.” The Fly (1986): “scientific discovery is sexual.” Dead Ringers (1988) and Crimes of the Future (2022): “surgery is sexual.” Naked Lunch (1991): “writing is sexual.” Crash (1996): “cars and car crashes are sexual.” eXistenZ (1999): “playing video games is sexual.” You get the picture. Even in the afore mentioned recent effort The Shrouds, Cronenberg explores the ideas that amputation in life and even decomposition after death are sexual human experiences. By the end of Shivers, the inhabitants of Starliner Tower become sexual zombies. The film (ahem) climaxes in an orgiastic pool scene in which Roger, the final holdout, finally succumbs to the animalistic instincts of the parasites at the hands and lips Nurse Forsythe with a little help from the great Barbara Steele, whose infection scene in a bathtub is one of the film’s most memorable moments.
That this film includes so many hallmarks of his later work is not to say that Cronenberg came right out of the gate fully formed. Shivers lacks the aesthetic polish of his later films, and the ideas that have preoccupied him over the years have become more refined as he has continued to express them in more complex and nuanced ways. This is especially true in his fearless portrayals of sex, which have garnered more than a few harsh criticisms over the years. The complexities of his movies have often disturbed audiences, as indicated by the rousing boos Crash received at its Cannes Film Festival premiere.
But one of Cronenberg’s greatest assets as a filmmaker is his fearlessness. He has never been afraid to provoke, to disturb, and to probe into the deepest aspects of the things that make us truly human. For him, it often comes down to the very basest things. He reminds us that we occupy vessels that will decay and expire, be it naturally or through some process of disease or technological intervention. Cronenberg knows this well, but also conveys that the fact that this will all end is the best motivation to truly live and explore all the fullness of our humanity. He knows very well that we are preoccupied with sex and death and his explorations of these base fixations is why Cronenberg’s work has continued to burrow under our skin and into our minds for five decades.
