REVIEW: Shivers
I have a lot of love for David Cronenberg. In a genre full of pointless movies, he at least tries to make films that are actually about something. It doesn't mean that his movies are always good, but at least they all seem to have a message, and that holds them head and shoulders above the majority of the dreck that gets released. Plus, I am constantly entertained by the fact that he looks and speaks with such weird, slow and cold authority, that he reminds me of what a serial killer might be like if he went to grad school for too long.
Last night I watched "Shivers," his first feature film, which is some kind of message about the sexual revolution. On an isolated island, a crazy doctor infects the populace with a parasitic worm that acts as "part aphrodisiac, part venereal disease." The doctor, apparently believing that the human race thought too much and boinked not enough, was launching a test run of his invention when he found out that it also made people angry and violent -- not quite what he wanted. Before you can say "plot device," the small island turns into one part sex-crazed orgy, one part mob of creepy old people, and two parts stupid doctor that doesn't know enough to leave.
For a first feature, the movie holds up pretty well, but again showcases why I don't like movies from the seventies: they're ugly. I just can't take the style of the era, with all the orange shag carpeting, minimalist decorating, and abundance of brown/orange/blue/white color schemes. I won't even get into the hair. Decade aside, there's just something about the performance of the lead doctor St. Luc that hurts the movie; he just kind of coasts through the movie, obviously too dazed on 'far out chill out' pills to think to himself, "Hm. There's a disease spreading in the building which has turned everyone into rapists and murderers. I should leave soon." Granted, he tries to hide with his girlfriend, the nurse, until it turns out that she's also infected. But it's the seventies, man! Everyone's got it!
Cronenberg's script effectively supplies a sense of paranoia, but isn't quite daring enough when it comes to letting the suspense stand. Basically, if you think a character's going to get infected, they will get infected within five minutes of that thought. If it's even slightly ambiguous about whether a character is infected, they are infected. Sometimes, the obviousness of the writing undercuts the power of the idea: anxiety about being part of a dangerous sexual revolution, and having your flesh gain too much control over your mind -- fear and control of flesh seems to be Cronenberg's main fetish. I can only hope he's writing a sequel in which Viagra is introduced into a closed community.
ARE YOU ASTONISHED?
Last night I watched "Shivers," his first feature film, which is some kind of message about the sexual revolution. On an isolated island, a crazy doctor infects the populace with a parasitic worm that acts as "part aphrodisiac, part venereal disease." The doctor, apparently believing that the human race thought too much and boinked not enough, was launching a test run of his invention when he found out that it also made people angry and violent -- not quite what he wanted. Before you can say "plot device," the small island turns into one part sex-crazed orgy, one part mob of creepy old people, and two parts stupid doctor that doesn't know enough to leave.
For a first feature, the movie holds up pretty well, but again showcases why I don't like movies from the seventies: they're ugly. I just can't take the style of the era, with all the orange shag carpeting, minimalist decorating, and abundance of brown/orange/blue/white color schemes. I won't even get into the hair. Decade aside, there's just something about the performance of the lead doctor St. Luc that hurts the movie; he just kind of coasts through the movie, obviously too dazed on 'far out chill out' pills to think to himself, "Hm. There's a disease spreading in the building which has turned everyone into rapists and murderers. I should leave soon." Granted, he tries to hide with his girlfriend, the nurse, until it turns out that she's also infected. But it's the seventies, man! Everyone's got it!
Cronenberg's script effectively supplies a sense of paranoia, but isn't quite daring enough when it comes to letting the suspense stand. Basically, if you think a character's going to get infected, they will get infected within five minutes of that thought. If it's even slightly ambiguous about whether a character is infected, they are infected. Sometimes, the obviousness of the writing undercuts the power of the idea: anxiety about being part of a dangerous sexual revolution, and having your flesh gain too much control over your mind -- fear and control of flesh seems to be Cronenberg's main fetish. I can only hope he's writing a sequel in which Viagra is introduced into a closed community.
ARE YOU ASTONISHED?
- The nurse: is she attractive, or not? I spent several hours thinking about this. Even now that I've seen her naked, I still don't know.
- I'm guessing that the parasite is supposed to be phallic, but most of the time it looks vaguely poo-shaped. Then again, that is also a fetish to some people.
- Think of it: the whole world becomes a giant Studio 54 on a Friday night. I don't even want to think about what that smells like when Sunday rolls around.
sent by The Retropolitan at 4:17 PM
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