Director: David Cronenberg
Running Time: 87 mins
Certificate: 18
Release Date: October 13th 2014 (UK)
Coming to Blu-ray for the first time anywhere in the world, David Cronenberg’s debut feature gets a sharp HD upgrade. Filmed a full 40 years ago on a fairly low budget, Shivers looks surprisingly good, even if on Blu-ray you can see the edges on some of the effects. That said though, for a movie that helped create so many of body horror effects that became popular after the film, they still work extremely well. Indeed one scene with a creature crawling around under someone’s stomach has never really been bettered.
Shivers is set in the big, modern Skyliner apartment block. A doctor has been experimenting, using a parasite to replace human organs. He tries to end the research by killing the female test subject and then himself. However it’s not enough and soon the parasite is out, infecting residents of the block. The infection causes all boundaries to break down, with everyone becoming sexually voracious as they look for more victims. [Read more…]