Shivers

Watch Shivers (1975) online on iFILM — the first feature from David Cronenberg, a horror-sci-fi hybrid set in a sealed luxury apartment block on an island near Montreal, where a parasite starts rewriting its tenants from the inside.

Inside the spotless Starliner Towers, it begins with one infected body. The parasite, somewhere between a slug and a venereal disease, passes between people through sexual contact and burns away everything in its host except appetite. Dr. Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton) races to contain the spread as floor after floor fills with frenzied, grinning neighbors. Genre icon Barbara Steele appears as one of the early victims.

Every Cronenberg obsession is already here in raw form: the body as battleground, illness as metaphor, clinical cool standing in for gothic gloom. It was shot cheaply and it shows, yet this scrappy little film is where the whole school of body horror was born. For viewers with a strong stomach and a taste for genre origins, there's plenty to chew on. Stream Shivers (1975) online on iFILM.