Shivers

Shivers, which introduced erstwhile ‘king of venereal horror’ David Cronenberg to the world stage, was at one point renamed They Came from Within. But the original title is much more apt: if its nastiness, nihilism, and depravity don’t give you at least one shuddering chill down you spine, you best get your head checked.

The film is entirely set in a modern (for 1975) apartment complex on an island just outside Montreal, where phallic, slug-like parasites, “part aphrodisiac, part STD”, are unleashed on unsuspecting residents. The quasi-comical conceit turns queasy when they quickly spread, bursting from host to host in a literal orgy of frenzied sexual carnage – mostly in the form of assault, although once everyone has been infected it’s pretty much a sex zombie free-for-all (a much better alternate title). Ever the cerebral provocateur, Cronenberg doesn’t just wallow in sleaze for its own sake. He also cynically rebukes the naïve narcissism of 60s-style ‘free love’ through perverse parody. When total freedom from societal restraint gives way to biological enslavement, the brainless bugs have won. [Michelle Devereaux]