Author's Note: As many of you already know, the most recent episode of the Hulu horror anthology series Into the Dark was postponed due to Coronavirus post-production woes, which is to say, it's hard to do post-production during a worldwide pandemic. Just ask The Walking Dead, which has yet to release its season finale.
Anyway, better late than never, but I chose to wait until the current episode of season two was released before doing this review, even though I suppose I could have gone ahead and reviewed the first season's 4th of July-centric episode in a more timely fashion. That said, insofar as I know, the current episode is the last to have been completed before the outbreak, which means this episode is effectively the season two finale.
I know, I know- I'm (culture) shocked, too. As such, in keeping with all the other reviews, I will be doing the last two episodes of the first season in one review next month, which tie into, respectively, the first day of school and Father/Daughter Day. As neither are actually true Federally-recognized holidays, it doesn't really matter when I do them, so I'll just do them whenever I can get around to it in August.
In the event that another season two episode is completed after all- they could maybe do a Zoom-themed horror episode, which wouldn't be hard, as navigating Zoom can be a horror, lol- I'll just go back to normal and review that and episode eleven of season one at the same time, as per usual, but I don't expect that to happen, so just look for my final Into the Dark review, for the time being, to happen sometime next month. Alright, let's get going with a little...
Originally released at the height of all of El Trumpo's border immigration nonsense, Culture Shock is widely considered by many critics to be the absolute best episode of the series to date, so I was very much looking forward to it. For the record, I didn't read any of said reviews before writing this- I try to never read other people's reviews before writing my own, if possible- but I was going by the info on the show's Wikipedia page, which features a Rotten Tomato-esque chart with each episode's critical aggregate.
I'm happy to say that, at least in this case, the critics were right- Culture Shock is indeed one of the very best episodes of the series to date- maybe even the best, period. It helps that it tackles a timely subject matter, with both sensitivity and a wry sense of humor, to say nothing of the fact that it was actually co-written and directed by a Mexican immigrant, Gigi Saul Guerrero, who got the job after criticizing the original script by newcomers James Benson & Efrén Hernández for not being "authentically Mexican" enough.
Gigi is "authentically" hot, though, as seen here
After rewriting the script to her tastes and gaining approval from Blumhouse, she then proceeded to cast the film with actual Mexican actors with their blessing, and to subsequently direct them in Spanish, while simultaneously speaking in English to the non-Spanish speakers in her cast and crew. (Bilingual FTW!) Most of the film was shot in sequential order, so as to make it that much more "real" for the actors. Blumhouse was so impressed with the end results that they signed Guerrero to a "first look" movie-and-TV deal late last year for her efforts.
Culture Shock tells the tale of a woman named Marisol (Martha Higareda, Borderland, Altered Carbon), who is pregnant and determined to get to America to provide a better life for her unborn child, no matter what she has to do to achieve her goal. We see in flashbacks that this is not her first attempt to get there, as she was sexually assaulted by Oscar (Felipe de Lara, Texas Rising), a man she thought of as a friend, who hooked her up with the "Coyote" (Sal Lopez, Full Metal Jacket) that was supposed to get her across the first time.
The rape resulted in her current condition, and also a further incentive to get across the border- to track down Oscar and confront him and possibly avenge her assault. Though the Coyote is dubious of her condition and warns her that he'll leave her behind again if she can't keep up, just as he did the last time, he nonetheless agrees to give it another shot, given that she's got the cash to take another crack at it. Even if she fails, he profits, so why not?
All is relatively well when the group runs afoul of the Cartel just before they are about the cross. A chase ensues, and sure enough, Marisol is caught at the border- but not by the Cartel. Is it the Border Patrol? A rogue group of would-be patriots trying to enforce their beloved President's hard stance against illegal immigrants? Or is it something actually even worse, as hard as that is to imagine? This being a horror show, I'm sure you can figure that one out on your own.
Marisol passes out, and when she wakes up, it would seem she has made it across after all. A seemingly kindly woman, Betty (horror royalty Barbara Crampton, of Re-Animator and Chopping Mall fame, among many other cult flicks) is there, telling her that her baby has been born and is alive and well and everything's just fine. But is it? Everyone is shiny and happy and always smiling, as if on heavy drugs, and the pastel colored clothes and homes and general environment look like a cross between a Tim Burton film, circa Edward Scissorhands, and that old Soundgarden video "Black Hole Sun."
So, if she's not actually in America, where is she? And what the hell is going on? Why don't the people she crossed with that are also there seem to readily recognize her? And why do they seem so different? And why won't Betty let her hold her newborn baby? So many questions, so little answers, but Marisol is determined to find out the truth, by any means necessary, perhaps with the help of the seemingly friendly Mayor, Thomas (Shawn Ashmore, the X-Men series' Iceman).
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where all this is going- if you're remotely familiar with Black Mirror, you'll probably realize what's going on almost immediately- but it's not really about the "big twist." This is a human story, meant to make the viewer empathize with people who just want a better life for themselves, aka what used to be known as the "American Dream." But what happens when the "American Dream" becomes a nightmare? For all too many immigrants, including the ones who were born here and have lived here all their lives, that question is all too real these days.
Culture Shock, as its name implies, puts the viewers in the shoes of a completely relatable character, excellently played by Higareda, that you'd almost have to be a complete a-hole not to sympathize with. She's a rape victim that, against her better judgment, has decided to keep the baby, which should go over well with conservatives, and yet, she's also fiercely independent and driven, which should win over the liberals.
Yes, the right may not take too kindly to the whole "anchor baby" thing, but you'd have to be heartless- or the President- not to feel for Marisol once you realize what's really going on here. And even the far right should like the other "twist" ending at the very end of the episode- though, if they really think about it, it's actually a pointed commentary on what our country has become under our recent leader, who isn't much of one, no matter where you stand on the whole immigration issue.
Hell, IRL, for all of El Trumpo's grousing about not letting people in because of the pandemic, it's actually other countries that are actively trying to keep us out because of how disastrously he has dropped the ball, when it comes to the Coronavirus. In other words, immigration isn't down because of him, it's down because he's so thoroughly screwed things up that people don't even want to come here anymore, you know what I mean? That's not exactly something to brag about, especially if you consider that this used to be the place where the world's best and brightest wanted to come- now, they're taking their talents elsewhere, which can only hurt us on down the line.
So, yeah, although the episode isn't anything you haven't seen before, plot-wise, it absolutely is a new variation on a tried-and-true plot that you probably haven't seen before. By making things political, writer/director Guerrero effectively ups the ante and makes it a must-see episode of the series. The cast is golden, and it's always nice to see one of my all-time fave Scream Queens, Crampton, even if she doesn't have a huge role here. (Seriously, though, does that woman age? She practically looks the same as she did when I was a kid!) I say check this one out, absolutely. 🎆🎉😊
Next up, we have the latest, and possibly the last episode for a while, The Current Occupant. Unfortunately, its critical reception has been in keeping with Treehouse, which is to say, many consider it to be one of the worst efforts of the series to date. I patently disagree with that assessment- Treehouse was actually one of my favorites. But is Occupant really that bad? Let's take a closer look and see.
Barry Watson (Boogeyman, Teaching Mrs. Tingle) plays Henry Cameron, a man who wakes up in a mental hospital with no idea what happened to him or how he got there. With Henry suffering a complete loss of memory, Dr. Larson (Sonita Henry, Krypton, Star Trek), vows to do everything within her power to help him, with an assist from a tough-but-fair orderly (Marvin Jones III, Black Lightning).
However, when he has a run-in with an erratic patient, Helen (Lilli Birdsell, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) that seems to recognize him "from TV," Henry begins to wonder if there's something else going on here altogether. A helpful nurse, Eliza (Kate Cobb, Shameless), seems to be on his side, but says they have to be very careful how they approach things, as there's certain things going on that are of a sensitive nature, to say the least.
After a certain point, Henry begins to wonder if he might just be the President of the United States, here after an assassination attempt on his life, with the nefarious Vice-President (Ezra Buzzington, The Hills Have Eyes) - whom he mistook as the Administrator of the mental institution- perhaps actively trying to keep him from remembering who he is so that he can remain President.
To hasten his recovery, he agrees to a highly-experimental process that involves a Clockwork Orange-style flashing of words and images before his eyes while he answers pointed questions from Dr. Larson. Will it help, or will it only make things worse? Also, is he even really the President, or does he just think he is? After all, Helen, a fellow patient, who claims to be his Secretary of State, isn't exactly the most reliable witness, and there are others there with similar delusions of grandeur. Might he be no different from any of them?
As you might have figured out by now, this isn't that far removed from last season's 4th of July episode, Culture Shock. The main difference is that, while Marisol knows something is off about her surroundings, Henry is the very definition of an unreliable narrator. Might he just be plain crazy as the result of a traumatic experience? As a direct result, it's hard to know whether we should support his quest for answers or not, which means he's a far less sympathetic character than Marisol, especially once he actively starts acting out and hurting people.
That's a problem, narratively, and it doesn't help that the end result is probably exactly what you think it is, even without having seen it for yourself. Granted, such was the case with Marisol in Culture Shock, but, as viewers, even if we can't exactly relate to her situation, we empathize with her predicament. In The Current Occupant, it's a lot harder to, as few of us have been in the same situation as Henry finds himself in, and his behavior in general is far less understandable, as those looking after him haven't really done anything to deserve his treatment.
I mean, don't get me wrong, if I were in the same scenario, I'd probably be freaking out, too, but I wouldn't necessarily be mean about it, you know? Also, as much as I hate to admit it, by making him potentially the President, part of me was inherently rooting against him by default. I couldn't help but think: boy, if ever there was a President that deserved to be locked in a loony bin, it's the one we have now.
Not that Henry seems to be actively conservative or what have you- we don't know that one way or the other- it's just well-nigh impossible not to bring the outside baggage that is our knowledge of the REAL current occupant into the proceedings. And that's a problem I imagine almost all US viewers are going to have. The sad thing is, under most circumstances, I would be empathetic to someone in this situation, but because it might be the President... not so much. Which says a lot about where we are as a nation, if you think about it.
I mean, I know it's not supposed to be THE President, as in the one we have IRL, but it's hard to divorce that from what we bring to the table when watching this, unfortunately. As such, it compromises the whole affair, which may be what critics are responding to so negatively.
But even if you can separate the two and look at things objectively, the truth is there's nothing here most of you haven't seen before, and the "twist" at the end isn't really a twist at all, unlike Culture Shock. There, the first big twist isn't a twist at all, really- we know what it is and what reaction we're supposed to have about it- it's actually the final twist that drives the knife in. Here, the twist isn't really that surprising, and, as such, it just ends up being anti-climactic.
In Culture Shock, it was the whole scenario that was different- it was a twist approach to a plot most of us have seen many times before- and that's what made it stand out. Here, it's a set-up many of us have seen before, but with only a mildly different approach, and because of that, the ending falls flat, primarily because it doesn't knock us for a loop, it just confirms a suspicion most of us already had throughout the episode. Hell, even if it had gone the other way, it wouldn't have been that much of a big surprise, either. That means that the whole thing in general just comes off as a retread. Oh well.
Look, it's competently acted, to be sure, and the execution is solid. The direction, by editor-turned-director Julius Ramsay, of The Walking Dead and Krypton fame, is perfectly fine- you can tell his background is in editing, and I mean that as a compliment, as he keeps things moving at a decent enough clip. Alas, the script, by Alston Ramsay, Julius' brother, is just too straight-forward, without bringing anything new to the table.
The Ramsays have worked together before on the movie Midnighters, which I haven't seen, but which got mixed reviews. But you would think that this would be a perfect fit for them, as Alston was a D.C. speechwriter who turned to screenwriting after retiring from that field. This should have been right up Alston's alley, plot-wise, but it ends up just wallowing in institution-set movie clichés.
To be fair, this approach has sunk plenty of other talented writers before him, i.e. John Carpenter's The Ward, also written by brothers, which wasn't terrible, but not exactly worth the near-ten year wait between movies for Carpenter, either, and hardly a return-to-form. The truth is, it's hard to create a new spin on such an old trope- and I say that from experience: I tried to write one, and it was roundly rejected in my writing class in college, which effectively stopped a proposed novel version dead in its tracks.
So, yeah, The Current Occupant is no Shock Corridor- hell, it's not even as good as Gothika or the amusingly bad Don't Look in the Basement, which are at the very least, entertainingly silly. It's just kind of meh, TBH. Regardless, not the finest one to go out on. Honestly, if they had leaned into the whole Trump thing, it might have actually been much more engaging all around.
By practically making the character apolitical- I literally have no idea if he was supposed to be Republican or Democratic or something else, like Libertarian- it makes the whole thing feel sort of wishy-washy. You're not really rooting for OR against Henry, because you have no idea if he was a good person or an awful one under normal circumstances. He seems okay, but it's hard to say. That's a problem, and it's one the episode just can't overcome, I'm afraid.
So, yeah, The Current Occupant is a big miss for me, but don't miss Culture Shock- it's the real deal, and one of the best episodes of Into the Dark ever. Turns out the critics get it right sometimes, after all. By all means, check that one out, but you're gonna want to skip Occupant, unless you're a Barry Watson completist, lol. Is there such a thing? If so, have at it- but I've about had it up to here with Presidential drama of any kind, quite frankly. 😵
Though well-received on the film festival circuit, producers weren't exactly chomping at the bit to work with Cronenberg after the release of his first two feature-length films, Stereo and Crimes of the Future. Cronenberg tried his hand at writing, but to no avail. Newly married to Margaret Hindson in 1972 and with a baby soon on the way, the would-be director needed work, and fast.
After taking a gig making documentary shorts for Canadian TV, he managed a short-term solution to his problem, but it was ultimately a creatively-unfulfilling one. College friend Lorne Michaels helped hook him up with a directing gig for an anthology series called Programme X in 1972, written by friend Norman Snider, which he enjoyed doing, but it only really succeeded in making him want to direct his own material that much more.
After reconnecting with another college friend, director Ivan Reitman (seen above in the middle, with Cronenberg in the upper left), who had already successfully directed two films that had received a theatrical release, Foxy Lady and the Grindhouse horror send-up, Cannibal Girls, both of which featured then up-and-coming comedic actors Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin. Reitman suggested that Cronenberg tamp down some of his loftier leanings and do a down-and-dirty horror film to kick off his career in earnest.
As he pointed out, horror films were a low investment/quick return way of recouping costs that also had the benefit of showing what a director could do in the process. A longtime horror fan, Cronenberg drew on some of his favorite films, notably the sci-fi/horror classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Romero's Night of the Living Dead, with a dash of Romero's latest, The Crazies- which would later be an even bigger influence on Cronenberg's Rabid- and created a script he entitled Orgy of the Blood Parasites, a B-movie title if ever there was one.
It told the tale of an isolated, state-of-the-art, self-contained high-rise called the Starliner Towers, which was located on an island off the coast of Montreal, coming complete with its own stores, shops, dentists, doctors and round-the-clock security to keep the "bad people" out. In short, the ultimate in prestige for those who wanted to live the high life, aka the rich and up-and-coming elite.
Unfortunately, among the residents is a crazed doctor that created a parasite, ostensibly to take over the functions of organs gone bad, but which has, in effect, gone bad itself, and is running amok throughout the complex, infecting people and turning them into sex-crazed maniacs- and that applies to all ages, and even those related to one another. Yikes! 🐛
Cronenberg shopped it around to everyone he could think of in Canada, but to no avail, as there were no takers. (Gee, I can't imagine why, with that plot, lol.) He subsequently took the script to Hollywood, where he had no trouble gaining interest from many potential investors (hooray for Hollywood!), but Reitman told him to hold off and talk to the Canadian company he had just worked for on Cannibal Girls, Cinépix, which was then run by producers John Dunning and Andre Link, seen above.
Cinépix specialized in softcore porn with a slightly political bent, and had just had a big hit with Valérie, which made some $1.68 million on a shoestring budget, the highest-grossing film in Canada to date at that time. Looking to broaden their horizons into other genres, they loved Cronenberg's script and wanted to produce it right away, albeit with someone else directing.
Cronenberg held fast and insisted that he direct, and the two finally gave in, but only if the more experienced Reitman came onboard as a producer to oversee the production and keep Cronenberg's more dubious tendencies in check, as Dunning and Link had screened Cronenberg's previous features and had their doubts about his instincts as a director. Reitman readily agreed, and after a slight title change to the decidedly less over-the-top The Parasite Murders, the production was off and running.
Cronenberg had a much bigger budget than he was used to this time around, thanks in part to a government grant courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada, though he would later come to regret their involvement to a certain extent- more on that later. As such, though he provided small parts to the actors he'd previously worked with, such as Ron Mlodzik (who played the high-rise manager, Merrick), he was able to land bigger names than he'd previously been able to.
In the lead role of Dr. Roger St. Luc, Cronenberg cast Paul Hampton, a singer/songwriter-turned-actor, who'd already been in some fairly high-profile films, including the camp classic Women of the Prehistoric Planet, the Western More Dead Than Alive (which co-starred Vincent Price), the right-wing conspiracy thriller WUSA (with Paul Newman and Anthony Perkins), Roger Corman's Private Duty Nurses, the classic Lady Sings the Blues, with Diana Ross as the late, great Billie Holiday; and Hit!, with Richard Pryor and Billy Dee Williams, with whom Hampton also worked in Blues.
Hampton also worked off-screen with the legendary Hal David and Burt Bacharach, and his songs have been covered by everyone from Sammy Davis, Jr. to Bette Midler to Elvis Presley to Johnny Cash, and more recently, Idina Menzel and Bruce Springsteen, who received a Grammy nomination for his effort, a duet with Rosanne Cash, daughter of Johnny. He also wrote and performed the theme to the classic sitcom My Mother The Car. Perhaps his best-known song is the award-winning "Sea of Heartbreak," which appears in the movies A Perfect World, Heartbreak Ridge and Clay Pigeons.
As Nurse Forsythe, St. Luc's co-worker and love interest, Cronenberg cast the quirky cult actress and fan favorite Lynn Lowry. Lowry was working as a Playboy bunny in Atlanta, with aspirations to become an actress when she got pregnant and quit her job, later moving to New York City. While auditioning for a role, she met legendary cult producer-director Lloyd Kaufman, of Troma Entertainment fame (The Toxic Avenger, Tromeo & Juliet, Poultrygeist, etc.), who liked her look and cast her in his latest film, The Battle of Love's Return in 1970.
The same year, she landed a role in the cult horror favorite, I Drink Your Blood (seen above), which is really something, if you haven't seen it. A role in the aforementioned The Crazies followed, which is where she caught Cronenberg's eye, who cast her on the strength of that film alone. After that, she appeared in a few soaps, but mostly horror films, having been established as a bit of a Scream Queen by then.
Other films include: Sugar Cookies, also co-produced by Kaufman, along with none other than then-future director Oliver Stone, and directed by and starring many vets of Andy Warhol's Factory scene; the racy Score, from former porn filmmaker Radley Metzger (who horror fans may know better for his 1978 remake of the classic murder mystery The Cat & The Canary); Jonathan Demme's early feature Fighting Mad and Paul Schrader's remake of Cat People.
After that, she semi-retired, getting tired of the sorts of roles she was being offered in mainstream Hollywood, which tended to be of the soap opera variety. She re-emerged in the early 2000's, reconnecting with her horror audience in films like Splatter Disco, Beyond the Dunwich Horror, Schism, George: A Zombie Intervention, Basement Jack, the remake of The Crazies, The Super, The Theatre Bizarre, The Haunting of Whaley House, My Stepbrother is a Vampire, Torture Chamber and Model Hunger, for which she won Best Actress at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. She continues to work steadily to this day, and is a friend on Facebook. 😊
But Cronenberg's ultimate coup, casting-wise, was obviously getting the cult icon Barbara Steele to appear in the film. If you're reading this and you don't know who Steele is, you really need to educate yourself, asap. Born in England, Steele originally majored in art at no less than the Sorbonne in Paris, before eventually turning to acting.
While she was a semi-regular on television, appearing in shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Night Gallery, The Winds of War, Secret Agent and I Spy, her real success came in film, in particular a string of Italian horror films which are now considered amongst the all-time greats of horror cinema of the 60's.
Her best-known efforts, in addition to this film, are probably Mario Bava's classic Black Sunday (which I reviewed here), Fellini's 8 1/2, Roger Corman's adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum and his women-in-prison flick, Caged Heat; Joe Dante's version of Piranha, the slasher flick Silent Scream and most recently, Ryan Gosling's directorial debut, Lost River.
Other films include: The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock, The Ghost, The Long Hair of Death, Castle of Blood, Nightmare Castle, Terror-Creatures from the Grave, The She Beast, An Angel for Satan, The Crimson Cult, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Pretty Baby and The Butterfly Room. She also appeared in the 90's reboot of the classic horror soap Dark Shadows and, most recently, lent her signature deep voice to the animated Netflix series Castlevania.
While initially reticent about her career in horror, feeling she could have had a better career, Steele has since come around and embraced it, doing interviews and even the odd film festival or con event revolving around her genre efforts. Most recently, she was scheduled to appear at the HorrorHound Weekend Festival to introduce and do a Q&A about her classic Black Sunday, but the event has since been rescheduled because of the pandemic- hopefully she'll still be attending when it happens in 2021, assuming it does happen...
Others in the cast of Shivers include: another actor with a deep, resonant voice- he even voiced "The Creep" in Creepshow 2 - Joe Silver (Deathtrap, Switching Channels), as Dr. Rollo Linskey- Silver would also go on to appear in Cronenberg's Rabid; Allan Kolman (Pump Up the Volume, Se7en, Holes) as the infected and hella creepy Nick Tudor- Kolman would go on to appear in the Scanners spin-off, Scanner Cop II; Susan Petrie (1973's version of Tom Sawyer, Point of No Return), as Tudor's wife, Janine; and Wally Martin (The Pyx, Wild Thing) as the Doorman.
Also cropping up in smaller roles are Sonny Forbes (also in Rabid and Scanners- no picture was available) as the man in the garbage room; Fred Doederlein (also in Scanners) as Emil Hobbs, the mad doctor at the beginning; Joy Coghill (Omen IV, The X-Files) as Mona Wheatley; Dorothy Davis (The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, Cathy's Curse) as Vi; Julie Wildman (no pic available- also of The Pyx and The Little Girl...) as Miss Lewis; Joan Blackman (Pets, two Elvis movies, including Blue Hawaii) as the woman in the elevator and Kirsten Bishop (Visiting Hours, Frequency) as her daughter. Plus, look close in the locker room attack scene and you'll see Cronenberg himself as one of the sex-crazed infected maniacs! Seems about right. 😜
While not exactly subtle- most horror movies are not known for their subtlety- Shivers is a fun, over-the-top slice of horror that certainly did its job in getting Cronenberg noticed- perhaps a little too well. While the film was the most profitable movie in Canada to date at the time, it came at a high cost, when critics tore it to pieces in the press- the BBC's Barry Norman dubbed it "the worst movie I've ever seen"- and the film's worth and "effect on society" was even debated in Canadian Parliament!
In fact, one of said critics, fellow Canadian Robert Fulford, seemed to take the film personally, to the extent that he titled his scathing review "You Should Know How Bad This Film Is- You Paid For It," a not-so-thinly-veiled reference to the fact that the film was partially funded by the Canadian government. Take it down a notch, people.
It's hard to believe that movies were taken so seriously back then- I mean, look at that Italian poster for the film above- especially to a modern audience, where we routinely see much, much, worse, even on just basic cable and in network shows. Well, minus the copious nudity, at least- but violence-wise, I've seen way worse on say, American Horror Story or even something like CSI.
Back then, such criticisms were no laughing matter- the review not only got Cronenberg and his family kicked out of their apartment, which had a "morality clause" (!), but made it that much harder for him to get funding for his next project, in spite of the massive, Canadian box-office record-breaking success of the film, which made over $5 million at the box office on a mere $185,000 budget.
To add insult to injury, when Cronenberg's career took off in earnest, Fulford tried to take credit for it, saying that, if he hadn't been so hard on Cronenberg, the film wouldn't have been such a hit and he wouldn't have gone on to so much success later on! Needless to say, Cronenberg himself was not amused and has said publicly that he could have done without Fulford's dubious "help." (See this interview for more.)
Looking back, it's obvious that the film was a clever dissection- pun definitely intended- of the haves and the have nots, and the cost of upward mobility. For all their heightened security in their isolation and armed guards, when the shit hits the fan, it only serves to make things worse, as there's no escape when things really get dicey- and they do get pretty insane towards the end in particular, to say the least.
While clearly done in a tongue-in-cheek manner that is sometimes lol funny, the film is not without its chilling moments, and is occasionally hard-to-watch, thanks to those fantastic gross-out effects by the FX maestro Joe Blasco, who also did the honors for Rabid, as well as The Touch of Satan, Garden of the Dead, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS and Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (both of which are amazing, if you've never seen them); Track of the Moon Beast (see review here), Ruby, The Clonus Horror and Whispers.
The film has also been a big influence going forward on other horror movies- including everything from obvious stuff like Night of the Creeps, Demons 2, Slugs, Slither (which flat-out stole- ahem, paid "homage" to the infamous bathtub scene- see comparison above) and High-Rise (based on a 1975 novel by J.G. Ballard, an author whom Cronenberg would go on to adapt with Crash) to perhaps even bona fide classics like Alien and The Shining. There was even a horror-themed magazine named after it.
The whole freaky thing in one's body that has to be cut out after it takes control of their nervous system is very Alien-esque and the final "chase" sequence with the doctor is quite reminiscent of the final wig-out sequence with Wendy in The Shining, as she goes from one place to another getting more and more freaked out by what she sees, down to a "pet play" sequence in both.
I'll leave it to you as to which is worse: a guy going down on a guy in a dog costume or someone leading two half-naked kids around on a leash! I'd have loved to have heard Cronenberg's discussion with the parents of those kids on that scene, lol. The sequence may not have a bit as indelible as the whole blood coming from the elevator in a tidal wave, but I'd argue that the whole thing with the father not only engaging in incest, but offering up his daughter to the doctor is equally, if not more, disquieting- albeit in a more, clinical, psychological way, aka more Cronenbergian. Of course, I have no proof that Kubrick ever saw Shivers in the first place, but it's undeniably similar and the first thing I thought of when I was re-watching that sequence again, so there's that. You never know.
In addition, the film as a whole also functions as a prime slice of body horror- and the first time since From the Drain- which was played more for laughs- that Cronenberg wholeheartedly embraced the whole concept of something foreign invading our systems. Obviously, it was a subject matter he would return to time and again, over the course of his career.
As such, given the overall plot-line, it doesn't take much to look at Shivers as a metaphor for fear of the other, aka xenophobia. All this needed was a head honcho hotel manager character in the vein of El Trumpo, a la Dennis Hopper's character in Romero's Land of the Dead and Cronenberg could have beaten Romero to the punch by some 30 years in that particular department. Romero did pay homage to this film, along with Rabid, in his classic Dawn of the Dead, so he was clearly a fan of Cronenberg (and vice versa) - so maybe he took the ball and ran with it, as it were.
The shame of it is that there is a character like that in the film, and it's played by the perfect person for something like what I'm talking about, Ron Mlodzik. How much fun would it have been to see him go full crazed hotel manager, like Nicholson in The Shining, or even something more akin to the Mayor in Jaws, released the same year? Think of it- Mlodzik semi-calmly trying to convince the tenants of his high-rise that there's "nothing to see here, just keep moving along..."
Mlodzik's character does dupe some of said tenants into joining the crazed orgy he has going on in the back, so there's that, at least. But I'd have loved to see Mlodzik unleashed to go full crazy- in his own peculiar way, of course. I did look him up on IMDb to see what else he had done, but aside from an uncredited role in The Paper Chase, his acting career began and ended with Cronenberg, sadly. His next role, in Cronenberg's subsequent movie, Rabid, was unfortunately his last, period. Reportedly, he was a longtime Professor of Film Studies in Montreal before he retired a while back, which seems about right.
As for the rest of the cast, Hampton is a bit bland and by-the-numbers, but Lowry and Steele are both just great, and I love the way that, in true Cronenbergian fashion, all avenues of sexuality are explored, be it lesbian, gay or... other. Obviously, some of this is meant to be funny, as the infected come across as horny zombies once things really get going, but Cronenberg is excellent at stopping on a dime to unnerve you and remind you, that, even if this is all a bit much, it's still a horror movie, and the most effective horror is usually grounded in reality- and what's more horrifying than the likes of rape and incest? In short, he may be playing some of this for laughs, but he's certainly not making fun of some of the subject matter at hand.
If anything, this is a dry run for a lot of the subject matter he's obviously most interested in, and which he would take far more seriously in his films to come. But it is that much more serious in its approach to the material at hand than his previous efforts, that's for sure, from the dubious corporations with only their own selfish interests at heart; to pedophilic, mad doctors running rampant in "polite" society; to slimy creatures invading our bodies- be they actual monsters... or other people. Cronenberg just isn't afraid to poke a little fun at the material at hand, either, making this also feel a bit like a light-hearted critique of 70's "swinger" culture as well.
Perhaps the best example of what I'm talking about comes at the very end, when we see all of the infected pile into their respective cars and file out of the parking garage to head to the bridge leading to the mainland, aka Montreal. The inference is obviously that they plan to infect their "swinging" ways on the rest of Canada- and perhaps even eventually the world.
It's more funny than chilling, until I thought about what's going on in the real world, at least, and then I couldn't help but think of it as being like the Coronavirus, hitching a ride to other parts of the world to inflict its particular brand of terror. THEN I felt a bit of a chill watching it. 😱
As many have pointed out, cinematography-wise, this is decidedly a step down from Cronenberg's own stellar camera-work in his previous two feature-length films, Stereo and Crimes of the Future. Robert Saad, who also did the honors on Reitman's Cannibal Girls, was the cinematographer, and while he does a perfectly competent job, there's also probably a reason he's best-known for working on the Police Academy series.
There are times when it feels like the cameraman himself is grossed out by what's going on, and can't wait to cut away from the "action," which is not what you want in a horror film. My guess is that the producers were uncomfortable with relative newcomer Cronenberg wearing so many hats- note also that Cronenberg didn't edit the film, either, that would be Patrick Dodd, better-known for his sound editing on films like Ed Wood, Se7en and The Mummy. (Dodd would go on to do the sound editing on Rabid, however.)
That said, though, whether it was due to Reitman's involvement and influence, or that the Cinépix contingent simply believed in the film, Cronenberg certainly gets away with a lot, all things considered. There's a whole lot of nudity and the main action in the film culminates in a pool orgy, in which, reportedly, a host of the film's crew shed their clothes and joined into the fun! I'm guessing a company known for softcore porn probably didn't have any trouble with that stuff, though.
And if the violence stops short of the grotesque stuff Cronenberg would later get away with in films like Videodrome and The Fly, it doesn't particularly feel like he held a lot back, either, save maybe in the opening bit with the mad doctor, but that may be because he wanted to preserve the element of surprise of seeing the creature just yet- an approach that would also be used by Spielberg in Jaws the same year and in Alien a few years later.
As my copy was from a different region (that's it, in the above pic) and my multi-region DVD player was in storage, I ended up watching the film on my Roku, via Tubi, and while one of the commercial breaks was a bit jarring and ill-timed, the picture was, I've gotta say, considerably better than my DVD, and it was definitely uncut.
That said, a new Blu-Ray is due from Vestron Video, of all people- remember them? - later this year, so you better believe I'll be picking that up, especially with all the bonus features it has. You can read more about that here. Can't wait for that one!
A few fun facts, though, in the meantime, which you may not know. The shooting schedule was a mere 15 days. Every scene reportedly contains something yellow or gold-colored, reportedly. The film was shot on, ironically enough, Nun's Island, which is indeed off the coast of Montreal. The nuns in question probably wouldn't have approved of the material at hand, I'm guessing.
Reportedly, Lynn Lowry and Paul Hampton didn't get along, which probably accounts for their utter lack of chemistry. Though Lowry did get along with Cronenberg, the two had an unfortunate moment in which she accidentally stabbed Cronenberg's shoulder with a large cooking fork (as seen above) when she missed the pad that was installed for her to hit instead! (Cronenberg's shoulder served as a stand-in for the actual actor in the scene- bet he regrets that decision.)
In addition, director Cronenberg and star Barbara Steele had a tense moment when she caught him literally slapping around co-star Susan Petrie and rallied to her defense. A freaked-out Cronenberg hastily confessed that she'd told him to because she couldn't muster up the tears needed for a key scene, even with the help of some onions! (When I heard about this incident, it was hard for me not to think of that recently-reported bit about Quentin Tarantino, who admittedly "lightly choked" Diane Kruger in Inglorious Basterds to make it look more "real," albeit with her permission as well.)
Shivers is undeniably Cronenberg's first bona fide classic, even if it's not perfect. The tone is a bit scattershot, with the opening bit with the mad doctor jarring in particular, and not necessarily in the way it was probably intended, although I'd be more inclined to blame the editor than Cronenberg for that one. Still, some of the humor lands better than other less thought-out examples, which is clearly due to Cronenberg's still puzzling out what he wanted his voice to be, in regards to film.
Cronenberg obviously worked this out, as the balance of dark humor and horror was much better handled in future efforts, in particular something like The Fly and Naked Lunch. To be fair, it's a tricky bit of business, balancing the two seemingly opposite types of approaches, which is why a lot of horror-comedies fall flat.
I don't think Shivers was intended as an out-and-out comedy, per se, but Cronenberg was clearly in on the jokes here, as he did write it and shoot it a certain way, so that it, at least in part, comes off as a semi-satire of Romero's Night of the Living Dead- something that wasn't lost on Romero himself, when he made the much more tongue-in-cheek Dawn of the Dead later in the 70's.
Whatever the case, I just love this movie, for all of its minor faults. For me, it's the first time Cronenberg's ideas clicked with the material at hand and didn't come off as clunky and a bit hard to get through- at least in the cases of Stereo and Crimes, which both only last just over an hour but feel way longer because of the approach to the material.
In other words, this is the first Cronenberg effort to feel like an actual movie, instead of some sort of weird documentary. It moves along at a nice pace, there's lot of crazy stuff going on, and it doesn't get bogged down in exposition like his previous feature-length films.
While I wouldn't say it's one of his best, by any means, it's certainly in the Top 10, and a great starting point for anyone looking to get into his work. It's safe to say if you don't like this film, then it's not likely to get any better for you as you progress through his other films.
Sure, there are a few exceptions, like the relatively mainstream The Dead Zone and more recent stuff like A History of Violence or A Dangerous Method, which might appeal to those who wouldn't go near his other, more radical stuff, but, at least in terms of his early work, if you don't like this, you probably won't like any of what immediately follows, either, because things only get crazier from here, for a while. Personally, I think Shivers is a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed seeing again, for the first time in a fairly long time.
Join me next time, as we delve into Cronenberg's return to TV, in light of all the controversy with this film, with his episodes of the shows Peep Show and Teleplay, entitled, respectively, The Lie Chair and The Italian Machine. For the record, I was not able to track down the episode of Peep Show entitled The Victim, so if anyone knows where I can find it, let me know and I'll try to include that one as well.
Until then, keep those doors double-bolted, unless you want to risk a visit from the sex-crazed zombies! Or maybe leave them open- things are getting kind of lonely out here... 😭
