Shivers (1975 film)
1975 film by David Cronenberg

Shivers, also known as The Parasite Murders and They Came from Within, and, for Canadian distribution in French, Frissons (IPA: free-SOHN; 'chills' or 'shivers'), is a 1975 Canadian science fiction body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Paul Hampton, Lynn Lowry, and Barbara Steele.
Plot
At Starliner Towers, a luxury apartment complex outside Montreal, Dr. Emil Hobbes murders a young woman named Annabelle. He slices open her stomach, pours acid into the wound and then kills himself. Nick Tudor, who has been suffering from stomach convulsions, finds their bodies but leaves without calling the police. The two bodies are found by resident doctor Roger St. Luc, who calls the police. Hobbes' medical partner, Rollo Linsky, tells St. Luc that he and Hobbes had been working on a project to create "a parasite that can take over the function of a human organ."
After suffering more convulsions, Nick leaves work early. He vomits a parasite over the railing of his balcony.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1520388. VIAF identifies the subject as 183629556. 17 of 17 selected statements include explicit references; 16 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shivers (1975 film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.