On Screen!: Shivers

On Screen!: Shivers (2008) is a feature film. Top cast includes David Cronenberg, Joe Blasco, and Ivan Reitman. The narrative builds around escalating stakes, urgent decisions, and action-driven momentum.

Actor: David Cronenberg

The debut feature from Canada's most celebrated filmmaker, David Cronenberg, Shivers provided the young director with a crash course in feature filmmaking and established many of the unsettling themes explored in his later work. In the film, medical professor Dr. Hobbes (Fred Doederlein) creates a genetically-engineered organism he plans to use to bring about a more sensually aware society, but his experiments turn deadly when the aphrodisiac-producing parasite gets out of control and spreads throughout a swinging Montreal apartment complex. Despite the film's success on both sides of the border, the critical backlash against the film was used to launch a cultural attack on Canada's film funding.