Trivia / Shivers (1975)

• Fake Nationality: The film's three leads; Paul Hampton, Lynn Lowry, and Joe Silver, are American actors playing Canadians. The police detective is played by a British actor.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • According to Lynn Lowry, she didn't get along very well with Paul Hampton during the shoot.
  • According to a behind-the-scenes interview in the late-'90s, Cronenberg stated that Barbara Steele almost beat the crap out of him; one scene that Steele shares with Susan Petrie required Petrie to be crying but since she wasn't able to cry on cue, she told Cronenberg to slap her to get her to cry. Whenever Cronenberg slapped her, she'd tell him to do it harder and it eventually became normal due to the many takes that scene took. However, at that point, Barbara Steele came to the set and saw Cronenberg slapping Petrie around but had not been told why, leading her to the not unreasonable conclusion that Cronenberg was being physically abusive towards Petrie. She did the scene but after the take was done, she stormed over to Cronenberg, picked him up by the collar, shoved him against the wall (Steele is over 6 feet tall and was wearing heels while Cronenberg is 5'9") and began laying into him about how she had never seen such unprofessionalism, and was about ready to hit him. Cronenberg hastily explained everything, saying Petrie requested to be slapped, adding that he hated doing it, and even demonstrating how hard with Steele's arm, and the dispute was swiftly settled.
  • According to Cronenberg, after he had explained the situation to Steele and she’d calmed down, she thought for a moment and then asked "Do I have any scenes where I cry?"
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The film has only seen scant home video release over the years; it's only in 2014 that Arrow Films has released a Blu-Ray.
• Reality Subtext: The film was shot in summer 1974. A news broadcast mentions a real-life labor dispute involving construction of Montreal's Olympic Stadium for the 1976 Olympic Games.
• Working Title: Orgy of the Blood Parasites.

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