Average Rating: 6.8/10
Reviews Counted: 19
Fresh: 16 | Rotten: 3
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 2
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 1
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Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 7,465
A gripping exercise in body horror and social paranoia, prolific Canadian director David Cronenberg's debut feature offers a startling look at modern isolationist society with a parasitic twist. When a scientist experimenting with a new form of organ transplants kills a young female resident of a fortress-like apartment complex before subsequently committing suicide, the investigation into her death leads to a frightening discovery. Originally conceived by the misguided scientist in a bid to aid
Jan 1, 1975 Wide
Sep 30, 1998
All Critics (22) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (16) | Rotten (3) | DVD (3)
The film is so tackily written and directed, so darkly photographed and the sound so dimly recorded, that it's difficult to stay with it.
Shivers, written and directed by Cronenberg, is a paranoid, prurient sexual nightmare.
Cronenberg's revolution is fraught with both dread and allure
Cronenberg makes the most out of the sterile building and creates some memorably shocking images.
Cronenberg shows his stuff as an inventive auteur.
Early Cronenberg. Crude, but effective.
Cronenberg got more sophisticated later, but this is still a gross-out chiller to be proud of.
Unusually heady for a zero budget shocker, finding its sources for fear in the mind/body disconnect between man and the basement of his sexual nature.
Deliciously disgusting.
The second half is a nearly non-stop explosion of gore and nudity, as well as incest, rape and lesbianism.
The "me" generation discarded sexual norms when it suited them, and Cronenberg offers a variety of punishments for their hypocrisy.
Despite all the nastiness there is a compulsive nature to this film that makes it very hard to switch off even when in full gory swing.
...the movie has a low-key immediacy to it that makes the perversions of its milieu all the more distressing.
Shivers is Cronenberg's formative movie in many ways. He really refines his focus on sex and violence, and takes body horror to new heights. This is a huge step up from his two experimental films. The synopsis on RT should suffice. I have nothing to really add. It's an interesting story that observes both
August 23, 2011
Super Reviewer
A rape-atorium of a movie. Imagine Night of the Living Dead, but with sex-ed up Canadians instead of Zombies. The film VERY watchable. The story is told well, the acting is mostly acceptable, and it's sprinkled with nudity.It is however, hideously shot. I've seen alcoholics that were better lit than this movie. All the
April 15, 2007Super Reviewer
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