Frissons

"Shivers"/"They Came From Within" is a wonderfully twisted horror film directed by Canadian maestro David Cronenberg("The Fly","Rabid","The Brood").It certainly works as a gory shocker(it actually managed to make my skin crawl),but there's not enough tension for my liking.There are some great gross-out moments and the parasites are suitably disgusting.The plot is simple:bizarre parasites lead the inhabitants of a high rise apartment building to go on an orgy of sex and violence.The film is delightfully disgusting,so if you like horror movies check out this masterpiece.Highly recommended.10 out of 10.

I'm a big fan of the director's but had never seen this one until the other day (the VHS re-release "director's cut" or whatever). The other user comments had let me to expect an amateurish curiosity, but I found it polished and feel no need to make any excuses for it (perhaps the new release is a cleaner print). It's pretty sly, the acting's not bad and I found the film most remarkable for its restraint and subtlety. I'm not sure I buy the idea that the parasites are a metaphor for Americanization - Cronenburg's concerns are, I think, more personal and abstract than such a reading gives him credit for. The movie is deliberately paced and the shock/gore factor is relatively low. I found it to be a modest footnote in a career that later bore stranger, richer fruit.

Hard to believe that I once thought this ludicrously daft horror-comedy, (although I'm not sure the laughs are intentional), was about the sickest movie I'd ever seen. It is fairly nasty in a visceral sort of way but it's also derivative, (it's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in all but name), and appallingly acted, (look out, in particular, for the elderly European couple with the walking frame), so that any serious point it may be making is lost. It's really another mad scientist movie, in this case the creation is a parasite, part aphrodisiac, part venereal disease, let loose in a self-contained Montreal apartment block. It could be seen as an AIDS metaphor and it's full of Cronenberg's usual queasy motifs but it's also pretty terrible.

Cronenberg's directorial feature film debut is built around a now-familiar amalgamation of sex, technology, and medicine gone mad. The Canadian "Shivers" (original American release title "They Came From Within", aka "The Parasite Murders") opens with a slide show advertising a creepily perfect-sounding high-rise apartment building isolated on an island but just minutes away from downtown Montreal. We are told that the complex contains practically everything necessary to maintain a comfortable life- medical and dental practices, clothing stores, a gift shop, a deli, recreation, etc. Ideally, it would seem, the only reasons a resident would leave would be to work, socialize with non-residents, or take a vacation, if that wasn't too redundant. But of course, something terrible is just under the polished surface. Cronenberg's direction is obviously not as polished as in later features, but we begin to see his signature style translated well into a full-length format.

I suppose if you've never seen any of Romero's zombie films, or his "Crazies", or even Cronenberg's "Rabid" and "The Fly", you might be impressed by this film. But for even a mildly seasoned horror fan, there is nothing especially interesting here. Of course it's Cronenberg's first feature-length film, so it's worth seeing for historical reasons, but the script is boring, monotonous, unfocused and it lacks an engaging protagonist. There are some disturbing moments (the opening fight/murder, where we don't even know who the villain is; the barking kids; the bathtub scene), but the film lacks a clear idea of how it wants to portray the "infected" people; most of the time they behave like energetic sex maniacs, but at other times they become the plodding zombies of the "NOTLD" variety. (*1/2)

SHIVERS (aka THEY CAME FROM WITHIN) is another pretty twisted outing from freak-o Canadian director David Cronenburg. SHIVERS is not nearly as memorable as some of Cronenburg's other works (VIDEODROME, THE FLY or my personal favorite - THE BROOD...) but it is still worth a look for anyone that is into Cronenburg's strange cinema. SHIVERS is about parasites that enter their human hosts and cause them to do all kinds of strange sexual and violent things. Pretty cool concept that is handled well, and the film is both weird and entertaining as only Cronenburg can do it. Again, not the best of his films by any means, but still solid. Give it a shot - 7.5/10