Shivers (1975)

Shivers (1975, Can.) (aka They Came From Within, The Parasite Murders)

Canadian writer/director David Cronenberg's scandalous early erotic "body-horror" film (his feature film debut and first commercial success) was about a group of Montreal high-rise apartment occupants of Starliner Towers who went on a sex and violence spree after being infected by turd-like parasites. The film's parasites stood as a critical metaphor railing against the swinging and permissive sexual lifestyles of the 70s and its inherent risks (venereal disease and other sexually-transmitted diseases), concluding with the threat of deadly abdominal infections (and rampant nymphomaniacal behavior) for the entire city of Montreal.

The horror-sci/fi film, heavily funded by the taxpayer-funded Canadian government (the Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC)), was attacked as hideous, pornographic, and nasty. It shocked audiences and the government for lurid depictions of gore and sex, delving into multiple taboos such as pedophilia, incest, rape, infanticide, cannibalism and homosexuality. Cronenberg definitely equated sex with disease in the film, and was taking advantage of the surge of zombie films following George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968).

The low-budget sexploitation film, heavily edited and censored to avoid an X-rating, was distributed by the notorious American International Pictures (AIP) in the US (and titled "They Came From Within"). Its domestic (Canada) gross revenues were 1ドル million, with a worldwide total of about 5ドル million.

• in the opening sequence, the setting for the film was introduced with a promotional slide-show; the Starliner Towers - a sterile, state-of-the-art, high-rise apartment building (compared to a luxury liner) was located on Nun's Island and only accessible by a bridge; the complex was located 12 1/2 minutes away from downtown Montreal; the Starliner was packed with extras: an underground garage, beautiful views of the St. Lawrence River, brand-name electrical appliances, cable TV (standard), a heated Olympic-sized pool, a 9-hole golf course, lighted tennis courts, and lots of stores and services for its residents - including an on-site dental and medical clinic
• two Swedish newly-weds Kresimir and Benda Sviben (Vlasta Vrana and Silvie Debois) arrived at the Starliners' West Tower lobby for a scheduled tour of the building with slick rental agent Mr. Ronald Merrick (Ronald Mlodzik)

• meanwhile, in Apt # 1511, one of the upper-floor Starliner Towers apartments, 19 year-old teenaged school-girl/mistress Annabelle Brown (Cathy Graham) was in a death struggle with 68 year-old retired professor and researcher Professor Emil Hobbes (Fred Doederlein); Hobbes chased her around his living room, subdued her, and then strangled her to death; her mouth was taped and she was laid out on the wooden dining room table where her clothes were stripped off, and her entire torso was "badly mutilated"; her abdomen was slit open with a scalpel; after prying open the cut line, he poured steaming acid into the cavity; then with remorse, Hobbes committed suicide by slashing his own throat with the scalpel and falling to the floor
• in another one of the apartments, married tenant Nick Tudor (Allan Kolman) in his late 30s, was in his bathroom in the early morning preparing to go to work; Nick was beginning to show signs of being sickly; he was suffering from severe stomach pains and lumps; he briefly revealed his cruel hostility as he shared a breakfast meal with his pleasant wife Janine Tudor (Susan Petrie) before leaving
• on his way to work, Nick first took the elevator up to the 15th floor and entered Annabelle's apartment # 1511 with his own key; he was sickened by the sight and smell of the two corpses, but declined to report his findings to the authorities; he was attempting to cover up the fact that he had been having an ongoing sexual affair with the promiscuous Annabelle and was cheating on his own wife Janine
• with her husband at work at Ashen and Gaunt Insurance Appraisals, Janine visited with Betts (Barbara Steele), one of her resident friends in the building, to express her concerns about her husband's illness and his reluctance to see a doctor: ("He hates doctors"); Betts suggested that Janine speak to the Starliner's resident clinic physician Dr. Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton) about her husband's condition

• in the meantime, at the murder scene, it was revealed that the two bodies had been discovered and reported by Dr. Roger St. Luc; Mr. Merrick and the doctor were being questioned by Homicide Detective Sgt. Heller (Barry Boldero); it was revealed that Dr. Hobbes was covering the payments for the apartment's rent for his own nefarious uses, although it was registered to Annabelle; Roger claimed he had received a 6:00 AM call from Dr. Hobbes to meet him in the apartment to go to lunch, and thus discovered the two corpses and reported them; Roger had previously been one of Hobbes' students at the university when he was in medical school
• during a fast-food lunch, Roger met in the laboratory of Hobbes' medical partner Rollo Linsky (Joe Silver); later, behind Linsky on a refrigerator posting was the sentence: "Sex is the invention of a clever venereal disease"; Linsky explained that he and Hobbes were trying "to find an alternative to organ transplants" by breeding parasites; he went into detail about how the two were attempting to create a special breed of parasites ("bugs") that could be implanted in a human cavity and take over the functions of diseased human organs:
  • "Why not breed a parasite that can do something useful? A parasite taking over the function of a human organ. For example, you breed a parasite that you implant in the human body cavity. It hooks around the circulatory system and it filters the blood just like a kidney does. So it takes a little blood for itself once in a while. What do you care? You've got enough. You can afford to be generous"
• his description revealed that Hobbes was a crazed, mad doctor who was conducting unorthodox organ transplant experiments on a 'guinea pig' - the teenaged schoolgirl; Linsky admitted that Hobbes was a "lousy teacher," but was successful in raising money and obtaining large grants for his many projects; he had used one recent grant to pay for the apartment's rent; Linsky also revealed that Hobbes was an avowed and deviant pedophile - who had originally met Annabelle during a school lecture when she was only 12 years old:
  • "They caught him examining her titties for breast cancer in the faculty lounge. She was 12 years old. Talk about crazy. He used to bring her up here once in a while"
• meanwhile at work in his office, Nicholas Tudor was found bleeding from his mouth (from a serious stomach ulcer?), but refused being rushed to the hospital; he insisted on returning home via a taxi; simultaneously as he entered his apartment, his wife Janine was conferring with Dr. St. Luc back in his clinic office, about Nick's possible "swollen glands"; he promised to see Nick much later in the evening
• up in his apartment, Nick toppled over onto the floor with severe convulsions and bloody vomiting; it appeared that he had expelled a bloody parasite from his stomach into his apartment's bathtub, where it wriggled into the drain; the parasite began its spread throughout the building
• Nick also threw up off his balcony, propelling a bloody projectile of vomit (and a parasite) onto the umbrella of an elderly lady named Olive (Edith Johnson), taking a walk on the grounds; the parasite crawled from the garden's lawn area into one of the building's vents, and was revealed by its slime-streak to have entered the basement's laundry area with coin-operated machines
• after filling a washing machine with her dirty clothes, a Laundry Woman (Nora Johnson) noticed a bloody streak on another machine; when she opened the lid, a parasite jumped onto her and attached itself to her face; the virus (through parasitic matter) was already beginning to go out of control amongst residents of the Starliner Towers, and was spreading rapidly from person to person
• in his office, Dr. St. Luc examined the sore abdomen of elderly bachelor resident Brad Parkins (Al Rochman), who had been bragging in the waiting room about how he used "mega-vitamins" to envigorate himself; he then hinted that he had contracted the painful lumps from a promiscuous "young lady" who passed them onto him and lived in Apartment # 1511 (Annabelle!)
• the parasites were red-colored, bloody, invasive and worm-like slug-turd (or phallic-shaped, similar to grotesque male genitalia) - they would incubate in the stomach, then emerge from the mouth (through vomit), attach to another victim's face, and ultimately would rapidly spread and infect multiple individuals
• before Janine returned to her apartment, she briefly stopped in to see Betts to report on Nick; Betts seductively invited her to dinner: "Why don't you come and join me for dinner. Everything from Filipe's...I loathe to eat alone. It makes me feel so fat and lonely. I always order for two"
• Janine found Nick passed out on their kitchen floor and blocking the refrigerator door from closing; as she took him to the bedroom, two children, a young Boy (Robert Brennen) and a young Girl (Felicia Shulman) in the hallway, who were playing door-knocking pranks, were shocked to notice an ugly-looking parasite crawling out of the Tudor's front door mailbox-slot; the lumps in Nick's stomach undulated as he deliriously and encouragingly spoke to them: "You and me, we're gonna be good friends"
• after a long day's work in the clinic, Dr. St. Luc received a phone call from Rollo Linsky with more background on Dr. Hobbes; as he listened to Linsky, Roger watched as his loving Nurse Miss Forsythe enticingly and amorously changed out of her white uniform in front of him into her street clothes; he was observing her nakedness as Linsky told him about the parasite that Hobbes had implanted in Annabelle as his 'guinea pig':
  • "...a parasite that's a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease that will hopefully turn the world into one beautiful, mindless orgy"

• in addition, Linsky described how the parasite had taken over Annabelle's body and she went beserk; Hobbes had presumably attempted to rid her body of her sexually-voracious implanted parasites before their spread - by burning them, but that necessitated killing her; Dr. St. Luc confirmed through his own clinic's records that Annabelle had been a "popular girl" and promiscuous with at least three or four men in the Starliner Towers, who were now "hosting large, free-moving, apparently pathogenic, abdominal growths" that at first had been difficult to identify; one of her sexual partners was Nick Tudor who had been infected with the strange growth due to sexual contact; Linsky warned that any infected victims in the entire high-rise apartment building could be transformed into flesh-devouring, crazed sex maniacs and bizarre zombie-like fetishists
• after the call, Roger and Miss Forsythe made plans to see each other later in the evening for a gourmet dinner she prepared in her apartment
• in the next particularly scary scene, Betts prepared to take a bath, while listening to the radio about the two deaths (a murder and suicide) at the Starliner Towers; after plugging the drain and filling the tub, as she reclined back in her bathtub, a parasite emerged from the drain and sought entry into her body; it crawled up between her legs into her vagina, violating her, and infecting her as she struggled, splashed around, and bloodied the water; sometime later, the bathtub drained and she stepped out onto the tile floor

• additional residents in the building were becoming voraciously sexually-aggressive after further attacks:
  • in a hallway, the infected Laundry Woman emerged from her apartment and attacked a Bearded delivery man from Filipe's Restaurant bringing a take-out dinner order to Apt # 416 (Betts' apartment); the crazed woman called out: "I'm hungry for love!"
  • in the midst of preparing a late-night roast-beef dinner for Dr. St. Luc, Miss Forsythe was interrupted by the male newly-wed Kresimir Sviben at her door - as he grabbed at her throat and tore her clothes, she defensively stabbed him with her kitchen pronged-knife in the shoulder before she was able to flee; she raced down to the clinic where she hugged Roger and told him what had happened; he investigated her claim and returned to her apartment where he took a sample of the blood from the stabbing on the floor
  • in another hallway, an elderly married couple Doris and Gunther Guilbault (Hanna Poznanska and Camil Ducharme) from Apt # 703 noticed a slug-like parasite crawling up her 4-pronged cane and onto her forearm, where it delivered serious burns; Gunther used her cane to remove the parasite and smash it to death before putting it down the garbage chute to the basement; Miss Forsythe treated the lady's arm wound in their apartment
  • the infected Bearded delivery man attacked a young woman (Joan Blackman) and her daughter (Kirsten Bishop) in an elevator
  • meanwhile, Nick tried to force his wife Janine Tudor to have sex with him: ("You're absolutely beautiful. Your eyes! Your mouth! You're absolutely the most sexy thing alive. Do you want to make love?...Make love to me, Janine! You're my wife!"); she resisted him after feeling the moving lumps on his abdomen; she fled in horror when one of his abdominal parasites crawled out his bloody mouth
  • in the basement incinerator room, Roger searched for and located the parasite that had burned Mrs. Guilbault's forearm; as he poked at it and speared it with the tip of a crowbar, he was ambushed and assaulted by an infected Garbage Room Man (Sonny Forbes), and was compelled to defensively kill the assailant with the crowbar
  • in the lobby, the Doorman (Wally Martin) noticed a malfunctioning elevator, and inside, he discovered the body of the young woman on the floor, and the Bearded delivery man with the young girl - all infected; the Doorman was assaulted, beaten, and then infected by a kiss delivered by the young girl
  • Miss Forsythe left the Guilbault couple when she realized the phone didn't work; she pursued after Roger to the basement, where she stumbled over the body of the Garbage Room Man and bloodied both of her hands; meanwhile, Roger was upstairs in Mr. Merrick's office urging him to call the police; by this time, infected inhabitants of the Starliner had formed a mob, and were roaming the hallways; they barged into the Guilbault's apartment to attack them, as the entire complex was being overtaken with copulation performed by orgiastic 'crazies'
  • Miss Forsythe was unable to drive out of the garage due to blocked exits; she was saved by Roger from a rape attack in her car by an infected security guard - he shot and killed the guard with the man's own gun; their car was broadsided by one of the crazed individuals as they attempted to crash through one of the exits, but they were uninjured
  • elsewhere, the infected Merrick ushered two complaining residents: Mr. Wolfe (Arthur Grosser) and Miss Lewis (Julie Wildman), into his office where the two were attacked by him and other orgiasts
• after her shocking sexual encounter with Nick, Janine rushed over to the apartment of her friend Betts; and then in the next nightmarish scene, the infected Betts - after being infected during the bathtub incident - seductively whispered repeatedly to her female neighbor:
  • Betts: "Do you know what I want? I want you to make love with me. Make love to me, make love to me, make love to me."
    Janine: "You can't be saying that."
    Betts: "Let's kiss, let's kiss...Make love to me..."

• with Betts' neck visibly bulging (on the left) as if she had a goiter, she passed on and exchanged the parasite with her partner (on the right), and Janine also became infected
• in the apartment complex's basement, Roger St. Luc and Miss Forsythe decided to hide to avoid infected residents as they awaited the arrival of police
• Rollo Linsky arrived at the apartment building, and in Tudor's apartment where he found the door ajar, he also saw in the bedroom that Nick's abdomen was covered with parasites; Linsky was attacked in the face by one of the parasites, and attempted to remove it with a pair of pliers in the kitchen; Tudor approached and protected the parasite by beating and murdering Linsky; then, Tudor grabbed the parasite from his face and devoured it

• as they were waiting, Miss Forsythe relayed to him her "disturbing" and creepy dream about how she had made love to an elderly, strange, repulsively-smelly dying man, and how everything in life was sexual and erotic - even death:
  • "But then he tells me that everything is erotic, that everything is sexual. You know what I mean? He tells me that even old flesh is erotic flesh. The 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. And I believe him. And we make love beautifully."
• and then as she went to kiss him, she opened her mouth to reveal her own parasitic infection; Roger knocked her out, wrapped a cloth around her bloody mouth, and attempted to lead her away from the complex, but had to leave her behind due to a massive assault by hordes of sex-crazed and infected individuals bursting out of storage lockers and reaching out their arms toward them
• Roger found Nick in his apartment's kitchen next to the bloodied corpse of Linsky; he shot and killed Nick, and then tried to flee and escape from the building, but all the exits appeared blocked by residents
• Roger ended up in the apartment's indoor swimming pool, where both Janine and Betts were swimming with their clothes on and acting strangely; he thought he was free when he fled from the pool and into an outdoor patio and grassy embankment - but was forced to retreat back to the pool when he encountered dozens of zombified crazies slowly approaching; he was followed into the enclosed pool area by the mob, as Betts grabbed his left leg

• the heroic protagonist Roger was pushed clothed into the pool with the walking cane by Mr. Guilbault, and was finally forced to succumb to being overpowered and surrounded by the parasitic forces in the complex; in this final "induction" or "baptismal" scene, he was seductively kissed (and deliberately infected) by Miss Forsythe while surrounded by a group of other infected inhabitants, to fully engage in the mass orgy
• the film concluded (during the scrolling end credits) with 'sunrise' news bulletins in the early morning reporting on how alleged, further unexplained city-wide waves of violent sexual assaults were occurring all over Montreal according to the city police, with the epicenter of the strange epidemic that began the previous night possibly being Starliner Island; aerial shots showed some of the Starliner residents (including Roger and Miss Forsythe) driving away in a caravan of cars from the apartment's parking garage - and crossing the island's bridge, to spread the infectious disease into the metropolitan area