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Alien may be a sci-fi horror classic, but what about the movies that inspired it - including David Cronenberg’s debut, Shivers?
At first, they might look as different as night and day. One is the directorial debut from a maverick Canadian director, the other is a Hollywood movie funded by 20th Century Fox. One is set in deep space, the other in a luxury apartment block on terra firma. One had a decent amount of money to throw at the construction of sets and special effects, the other was made for a few thousand dollars.
Yet Alien, released in 1979 and triggering a franchise that is still growing and mutating today, has more in common with Shivers than at first meets the eye. Cronenberg made Shivers for approximately $130,000 in 1975. Could it be that this low-budget shocker inspired what is still considered to be the ultimate space horror movie?...
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Alien may be a sci-fi horror classic, but what about the movies that inspired it - including David Cronenberg’s debut, Shivers?
At first, they might look as different as night and day. One is the directorial debut from a maverick Canadian director, the other is a Hollywood movie funded by 20th Century Fox. One is set in deep space, the other in a luxury apartment block on terra firma. One had a decent amount of money to throw at the construction of sets and special effects, the other was made for a few thousand dollars.
Yet Alien, released in 1979 and triggering a franchise that is still growing and mutating today, has more in common with Shivers than at first meets the eye. Cronenberg made Shivers for approximately $130,000 in 1975. Could it be that this low-budget shocker inspired what is still considered to be the ultimate space horror movie?...
- 2/18/2016
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
Beginning a series of David Cronenberg retrospectives, Ryan takes a look back at David Cronenberg’s debut commercial feature, Shivers...
There’s a streak of slyly black humour running through David Cronenberg’s 1975 debut, Shivers (Aka The Parasite Murders, Aka They Came From Within). Its premise, about slug-like parasites that turn the occupants of a luxury apartment block into sex-obsessed maniacs, appears to have been conceived specifically to provoke as many people as possible. But while its story elements are straight from schlock horror - there’s a mad scientist, rubbery monsters, a vampish Barbara Steele, lashings of gore and some suspect acting - there’s still that hint of intelligence and satire that would soon become synonymous with Cronenberg’s name.
Shivers opens with a wilfully shocking scene - an apparently derranged old man killing a schoolgirl, cutting her open with a scalpel, dowsing her abdomen with acid, and...
There’s a streak of slyly black humour running through David Cronenberg’s 1975 debut, Shivers (Aka The Parasite Murders, Aka They Came From Within). Its premise, about slug-like parasites that turn the occupants of a luxury apartment block into sex-obsessed maniacs, appears to have been conceived specifically to provoke as many people as possible. But while its story elements are straight from schlock horror - there’s a mad scientist, rubbery monsters, a vampish Barbara Steele, lashings of gore and some suspect acting - there’s still that hint of intelligence and satire that would soon become synonymous with Cronenberg’s name.
Shivers opens with a wilfully shocking scene - an apparently derranged old man killing a schoolgirl, cutting her open with a scalpel, dowsing her abdomen with acid, and...
- 3/22/2012
- Den of Geek
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