SHIVERS

A doctor discovers the existence of a parasite that is able to enhance individuals' sexual capacities but has the side effect of making them lose all control and inhibition. After experimenting with it, with disastrous effects, on a tenant of his building, the scientist decides to hide this discovery from the world by killing the young "guinea pig" and taking his own life. The doctor did not know that the girl he had used for the experiment had already infected other roommates with whom she had had sexual relations. Hell breaks loose in the apartment building, with the few not yet "sick" trying to escape from the mad people possessed by the parasite... Already with his first work, Cronenberg addresses one of the most beloved themes of his cinema: the possible negative implications that medicine can have on human beings. As often happens in his subsequent films, the Canadian director depicts a figure of a "morally bankrupt" doctor who risks the lives of others (and often his own) in the name of science. This Cronenberg film is undoubtedly a debut that does not go unnoticed: "Shivers" (original title) is introduced by the presentation of the residence where the story is set, a sort of bunker refuge that should guarantee the security of those who live there but instead will seal their fate; already in the viewing of these first minutes, a claustrophobic atmosphere, almost of "operating room," immediately emerges, obsessively present in many of the director's films. The film is also memorable for some truly strong sequences (rapes, violence, etc.), including the one, by the way very brief, in which an old man keeps two half-naked girls on a leash like dogs, scenes so excessive as to be almost grotesque. The viewing, as for all Cronenberg's films, is absolutely recommended but only in the uncut version. Curiosity: one of the female protagonists of the film is the horror icon of the 60s, Barbara Steele.