MovieChat Forums > Shivers Discussion > What's the Point?

What's the Point?

posted 18 years ago by Johnny_Too_Bad
6 replies | jump to latest

I'm having a huge problem understanding the overall message Cronenberg is attempting to convey. Rather, I'm having a problem understanding why this is considered a horror film (excluding, of course, all the lovely gore and slugs). By the end of the film, everyone becomes a super-horny sex zombie. So what? Honestly, I cannot find the fear in that. Granted, /before/ becoming infected there is the fear of sexual assault, but after that, everything is okay. The film doesn't imply or address any idea that sexual motivation blocks out all others so much that the sex-zombies refuse to eat or sleep, so what is really the big deal? No one has lost their minds, no one has died because of it, so what's the point? Why all the anxiety of not getting made out with by fifty chicks? I don't get it.

[–] explainmyself 18 years ago

By the end of the film, everyone becomes a super-horny sex zombie. So what? Honestly, I cannot find the fear in that.

What if your mom and dad tried to have sex with you?

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] nvasapper 13 years ago

All of Cronenberg's films contain social commentary as well as a critique of cultural and societal norms and values. In this film he was focusing on the supercharged sexual environment of the 1970s, when people cast aside the traditional, conservative behaviors that characterized the repressive 1950s and engaged in all forms of sexual experimentation and self-discovery. Sex was in your face in that decade. It was everywhere you turned. Everyone was getting busy and people couldn't get enough. There was no thought given to any consequences, good or bad. It was that kind of frenetic behavior that Cronenberg was critiquing. The parasites in the movie are actually described as a combination aphrodisiac/venereal diesase. The director wanted to show just how easy it is to get infected with a nasty gift that keeps on giving. And once you became one of the infected, you turned into a mindless sex zombie, desirous of only one thing- having sex with anybody and anyone- fat, skinny, tall, short, young, old, beautiful, ugly- didn't matter.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] franzkabuki 13 years ago

Porn stars?

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan