These zombies aren’t hungry for brains; they’re hungry for love! 

David Cronenberg’s first widely released film is a reimagining of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) that replaces cannibal cravings with insatiable lust. A mad scientist determines that humans should stop overthinking and embrace their primal urges, so he creates a parasite to “turn the world into one beautiful mindless orgy.” A standout thread involves an aging glamour girl (played by iconic scream queen Barbara Steele) whose ethereal flirtations ensnare a married woman much younger than she. 

An alternate title for the film is They Came from Within, which speaks not only to the film’s parasite that travels from one body to the next, but also the authenticity of those sexual urges the parasite intensifies. These appetites run the gamut, some of them criminal, some of them not, with oodles of polyamory, gobs of queerness, and a few splashes of kink, including food play and pet play. Shivers is an apt title, too, as this film draws a wide range of visceral reactions across the entire emotional spectrum.