The Erotomaniacs
George Romero, in Night of the Living Dead (1968), created the image of mobs of crazed people (zombies in that film) swarming at remaining normals yet unaffected by the film's central problem: the dead returning to life, hungry for human flesh.
In David Cronenberg's early (1975) horror film, Shivers, the afflicted are tenants of an enclosed community on an island near Montreal. Having no need to leave the island except to work in the city, the tenants shop on site, receive medical and dental treatment there, enjoy recreational activities there--everything they need to survive in the modern world is provided, including a pharmacy and large underground car park. J.G. Ballard's novel High Rise, published also in 1975, is eerily similar to Cronenberg's film, all the more so since the two works most likely didn't influence the other. Could there have been in the minds of both artists the same idea at the same time? That people separating themselves from the greater part of society to live in ideal circumstances (as is done always by the wealthy) may cause psychological pathologies to form?
In Shivers, a genetically engineered parasite invented and deployed experimentally by one of the community's doctor tenants, gets out of hand in a big way that starts out, seemingly, as an isolated event. The doctor meant well, of course. The parasite, meant to replace damaged or failing organs, works by drawing some blood in the process, but it has the incredible and strange side effect of increasing the host's libido to a violent extent, transforming normal people into violent sex criminals.
This improbable and goofy premise drives the entire film. You either accept it or you don't. If you accept it, you can enjoy Cronenberg's brilliance as a filmmaker; his handling of suspense, of "the creep factor," of his artfully icky use of gore, his use of minimalist music that sounds almost like the apartment building itself, its vents and internal machinery. The lighting, too, is bizarre and suffocating even when there's too much of it. Most of the walls in the film are blank, hung here and there with weird abstract art. The building's blank white corridors reveal nothing inviting to their spaces and as the film becomes increasingly tense, these halls become menacing, especially once the crazed tenants, those infected with the parasites through mouth to mouth contact or through their orifices, begin their roaming for victims.
There is the sense, however, that giving in to this affliction is an improvement on one's former life. Embracing the chaos of total sexual and violent abandon, victims quickly indulge in the orgy that has become their new lives. All flesh, as one character explains, is erotic. Everything, in fact, every moment, is erotic. Fleeing from this, as remaining normal people do, is futile and ultimately a resistance to a logical follow up to a new form of humanity, one driven by a parasite that must consume so that all may become one flesh. It's a religious film, in a way. Groupthink takes over and spreads itself to the wider world. This one vision of how to exist begins in a self-contained apartment complex isolated on an island in the St. Lawrence River. Cult and contagion, the blood parasites, being genetically engineered, are a product of science, a life form of the future in the present, making a new world by using chaos as its instrument.
For much of the first hour of the film, I found it funny. The intensity of expression on the victims' faces, the upside down nature of societal relationships suddenly taking place, like a father and daughter inviting the protagonist, still not afflicted, to a threesome. One of the early victims sits in his living room, drink in hand, staring into space and then suddenly he jerks out of his chair and hits the carpet with such quick spasmodic violence it's like getting punched in the eyes to watch it.
The film's last half hour mounts in suspense and weirdness. A real sense of being trapped in the apartment complex with the tenants and their parasites takes over the viewer, the protagonist surrounded more and more, floor by floor, by mobs of people of all ages trying to rape him.
For all its outrageousness, this low budget Canadian horror film has all the strong points of Cronenberg's work and stands as a good early example of what led to horror masterpieces like Videodrome and The Fly, as well as the stunning style of non-horror films like Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch.
Vic Neptune
George Romero, in Night of the Living Dead (1968), created the image of mobs of crazed people (zombies in that film) swarming at remaining normals yet unaffected by the film's central problem: the dead returning to life, hungry for human flesh.
In David Cronenberg's early (1975) horror film, Shivers, the afflicted are tenants of an enclosed community on an island near Montreal. Having no need to leave the island except to work in the city, the tenants shop on site, receive medical and dental treatment there, enjoy recreational activities there--everything they need to survive in the modern world is provided, including a pharmacy and large underground car park. J.G. Ballard's novel High Rise, published also in 1975, is eerily similar to Cronenberg's film, all the more so since the two works most likely didn't influence the other. Could there have been in the minds of both artists the same idea at the same time? That people separating themselves from the greater part of society to live in ideal circumstances (as is done always by the wealthy) may cause psychological pathologies to form?
In Shivers, a genetically engineered parasite invented and deployed experimentally by one of the community's doctor tenants, gets out of hand in a big way that starts out, seemingly, as an isolated event. The doctor meant well, of course. The parasite, meant to replace damaged or failing organs, works by drawing some blood in the process, but it has the incredible and strange side effect of increasing the host's libido to a violent extent, transforming normal people into violent sex criminals.
This improbable and goofy premise drives the entire film. You either accept it or you don't. If you accept it, you can enjoy Cronenberg's brilliance as a filmmaker; his handling of suspense, of "the creep factor," of his artfully icky use of gore, his use of minimalist music that sounds almost like the apartment building itself, its vents and internal machinery. The lighting, too, is bizarre and suffocating even when there's too much of it. Most of the walls in the film are blank, hung here and there with weird abstract art. The building's blank white corridors reveal nothing inviting to their spaces and as the film becomes increasingly tense, these halls become menacing, especially once the crazed tenants, those infected with the parasites through mouth to mouth contact or through their orifices, begin their roaming for victims.
There is the sense, however, that giving in to this affliction is an improvement on one's former life. Embracing the chaos of total sexual and violent abandon, victims quickly indulge in the orgy that has become their new lives. All flesh, as one character explains, is erotic. Everything, in fact, every moment, is erotic. Fleeing from this, as remaining normal people do, is futile and ultimately a resistance to a logical follow up to a new form of humanity, one driven by a parasite that must consume so that all may become one flesh. It's a religious film, in a way. Groupthink takes over and spreads itself to the wider world. This one vision of how to exist begins in a self-contained apartment complex isolated on an island in the St. Lawrence River. Cult and contagion, the blood parasites, being genetically engineered, are a product of science, a life form of the future in the present, making a new world by using chaos as its instrument.
For much of the first hour of the film, I found it funny. The intensity of expression on the victims' faces, the upside down nature of societal relationships suddenly taking place, like a father and daughter inviting the protagonist, still not afflicted, to a threesome. One of the early victims sits in his living room, drink in hand, staring into space and then suddenly he jerks out of his chair and hits the carpet with such quick spasmodic violence it's like getting punched in the eyes to watch it.
The film's last half hour mounts in suspense and weirdness. A real sense of being trapped in the apartment complex with the tenants and their parasites takes over the viewer, the protagonist surrounded more and more, floor by floor, by mobs of people of all ages trying to rape him.
For all its outrageousness, this low budget Canadian horror film has all the strong points of Cronenberg's work and stands as a good early example of what led to horror masterpieces like Videodrome and The Fly, as well as the stunning style of non-horror films like Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch.
Vic Neptune
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