Editorials
Happy 40th Anniversary to David Cronenberg’s ‘Shivers!’
October 10th marked the 40th anniversary of Shivers (also known as They Came From Within), David Cronenberg’s classic body snatcher film. Shivers was Cronenberg’s first feature film (he had previously directed two short films), but it’s remarkable solid for such a relatively new director. While it isn’t known as one of Cronenberg’s best films, it has stood the test of time and remains a remarkably creepy (and gross) little movie.
***SPOILERS of a 40-year-old film to follow***
The films takes place in a Montreal apartment block as a scientist develops a parasite that causes uncontrollable sexual desire in its host and can only be spread through sexual contact. His reasoning for this isn’t exactly convincing (he thinks humanity has lost touch with its primal instincts), but nevertheless he implants the parasite into his teenaged mistress, who just so happens to be the complex slut. She sleeps with many people and parasite begins to spread among the residents of the apartment block.
Surprisingly for Cronenberg, Shivers suggests a lot of graphic violence but doesn’t show a lot of it. For example, when the scientist cuts open his mistress’s stomach and pours acid in it to dissolve the parasites before slitting his own throat, the audience doesn’t really get to see it. We know it’s happening though, and it makes the sequence all the more frightening.
Shivers went on to inspire countless films, including James Gunn’s brilliant horror-comedy Slither with its bathtub scene (featuring scream queen Barbara Steele):
Acting as a metaphor for the downfall of society, Shivers brings to mind the new Ben Wheatley (Kill List) film High-Rise, which also juxtaposes the crumbling of a microcosm inside an apartment building (I hated the film, Kalyn liked it). Whereas Wheatley’s film (and the novel it’s based on) take a satirical approach to the subject matter, Cronenberg goes for abject terror.
Normal life is lampooned (and exaggerated) through the boring, stuffy white collar residents of the apartment block that make up most of its population. It isn’t until they become infected that they are able to let loose and partake in their carnal desires. Weirdly enough, Cronenberg said that he related to the residents more after they had become infected. Cronenberg must have though Canada was having issues with sexual repression in the 70s.
While Shivers is first and foremost a horror film, it has plenty of moments of dark humor as well. Whether this is intentional, I cannot say, but it’s difficult to view the below scene and not find it kind of funny.
Finally, you’ve got the climax in the swimming pool. Arguably one of the most disturbing scenes in horror cinema, lead character Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton) is the only uninfected person left in the building. He makes his way to the swimming pool, where is is surrounded by the other residents and is eventually infected in a mass orgy. The final shot of the film shows all of the infected residents making their way to their cars to infect other people and take over the world.
In terms of bleak endings, Shivers really takes the cake, and the orgy in the swimming pool is a truly haunting image. There aren’t many films that can say the world ended because of a mass orgy. Interestingly enough, Shivers was was partially financed by the taxpayer-funded Canadian Film Development Corporation. Journalist Robert Fulford felt the good people of Canada should know what they paid for. He wrote a scathing review of the film, stating it was “the most repulsive movie he had ever seen” (due in large part to the film’s reliance on sexual themes and imagery), but ironically this only made more people want to see the film, and it became a box office success. A mildly positive review from Roger Ebert didn’t hurt either.
Shivers is a fantastic film, and it’s hard to believe its already turning 40! If you’ve never had a chance to see Cronenberg’s first film, definitely seek this one out. It has that 70s porno vibe to it, which is part of its charm, and it will undoubtedly get under your skin. That may be a cliché phrase, but there isn’t a film more apt to use it on than Cronenberg’s Shivers.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Kraus took the literary world by storm back in 2023 with the release of his hit novel Whalefall. A terrifying yet intimate survival thriller with mythological undertones, the book was almost immediately bombarded with offers from movie studios wanting to adapt its claustrophobic imagery to the big screen.
Fast forward to June of 2026, and we finally got our first glimpse at Brian Duffield’s long-awaited adaptation of Whalefall, starring Austin Abrams as our unfortunate lead who gets swallowed alive by a sperm whale. While this two-and-a-half-minute teaser only covers the beginning of the story, it’s already been making waves online (and in-person at select 4DX promotional screenings) as one of the most stressful cinematic experiences of the year.
In fact, my own wife had to cover her eyes and exclaim, “You’re definitely not dragging me to watch this one” when we saw the whale’s jaws begin to close in on Abrams, with this incident alone already leaving me convinced that this will likely be one of the biggest genre hits of the year. With that in mind, I’d like to invite you to take a closer look at the teaser in order to break down interesting details and get a better idea of what’s in store for genre fans when the movie finally comes out this October.
Of course, as usual, don’t forget to comment below if you noticed something we didn’t!
Now, without further ado, here are five things we learned from the Whalefall trailer!
5. Austin Abrams Performed Many of His Own Stunts
Much like in his previous film, No One Will Save You, Duffield insisted that this visceral experience should be grounded by our main character’s believable reactions, regardless of the plot’s effects-heavy setup. That’s why the camera always makes sure to linger on Abrams through his diving mask, so we know that it’s really him going through this ordeal alongside the audience.
While plenty of CGI was used in order to bring this larger-than-life story to the big screen without killing our leading man, Abrams apparently insisted on performing many of his underwater stunts himself (several of which are visible in the trailer) – much to the chagrin of a worried Duffield and the flick’s stunt coordinator, Shauna Duggins.
4. The Film Seamlessly Transitions Between the California Coast and Underwater Sets
Duffield obviously wasn’t about to drag his crew out to the middle of the ocean and shoot inside a real sperm whale, but it’s reassuring to see the filmmaker blend on-location footage with the underwater tank segments and the literal belly of the whale set.
There may be plenty of CGI stitching these elements together, but the trailer shows us that only the truly impossible shots are completely digital, meaning that the filmmakers didn’t take the easy way out when it came to adapting this unique story.
3. The Whale is Only Part of the Story
Book adaptations tend to leave out inner monologues and the occasional flashback in order to streamline the narrative (which is one reason why it’s so difficult to translate Stephen King novels to the big screen), but a claustrophobic parable like Kraus’ Whalefall would get a bit dull after a while if the whole thing was entirely set within the creature’s stomach.
That’s why it’s such a relief that the trailer hints at how Duffield will also be adapting many of the book’s introspective moments chronicling our protagonist’s harsh upbringing under his troubled father. Not only do these inclusions give the audience some much-appreciated breathing room, but they also give Josh Brolin a chance to shine as a truly complicated character.
2. The Movie is Keeping the Book’s Scientific Accuracy…
While Kraus’ novel was inspired by a viral video of kayakers nearly being swallowed by a humpback whale, the writer ended up consulting with marine biologists about exactly what kind of situation might lead to a whale actually eating a human being alive.
The answer was surprisingly specific, as cetaceans are almost universally known to be friendly towards humans. However, even a gentle giant can make mistakes, and as we see in the trailer, Abrams’ unpleasant fate is more of an accident than anything else – with the massive sperm whale only trapping the poor diver in the first (and thankfully acid-free) chamber of its stomach due to a mix-up involving a giant squid.
Fortunately for the film’s special effects artists, they can now reference the first-ever footage of a real-life sperm whale chowing down on one such squid, as this freaky recording was released late last year.
1. …With a Catch!
Duffield may be doing his best to recreate the grounded (or is it submerged?) thrills of Kraus’ novel, but there are limits to what can be depicted onscreen while still guaranteeing an entertaining movie. That’s why it’s no surprise that Whalefall will take advantage of certain cinematic parlor tricks as the director tests the limits of both physics and biology so we can actually watch his movie.
For starters, the innards of the whale itself have been greatly exaggerated so there’s enough space to make out the action, and in the spirit of movies like Neil Marshall’s The Descent, there also seems to be plenty of non-diegetic lighting meant to show us what’s going on even if Abram’s character wouldn’t necessarily be able to see anything.
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