It may take many years of trial and error for the average director to develop a recognizable style, but David Cronenberg is certainly not a filmmaker whose work could be described as "average" in any sense of the word. He knew what kinds of themes and images interested him, and this is a jolting, visceral horror flick that still packs a punch today. "Shivers" was Cronenberg's third feature (the two preceding films were low-key arthouse releases, each of which barely exceeded the sixty-minute mark), and centers around a medical experiment gone nightmarishly awry. The single setting--an upscale apartment complex on an isolated island--lends the film a claustrophobic intensity, and it's one of the more artistically successful siege horror movies. Barbara Steele seems to have been cast primarily because she was a recognizable genre face, but Alan Migicovsky steals the show as a tall, cadaverous insurance exec who spends most of the film gagging and puking up venereal parasites while going about the mundane business of his day as though nothing's wrong.
Cronenberg's later films were much more polished, but I daresay that he's never directed anything more purely entertaining--or more representative of his aesthetic--than "Shivers." You'll enjoy it if you're a fan of his other work, or of '70s horror in general. (Those whose tastes extend to horror in other forms of media may notice some parallels with Harlan Ellison's short story 'The Whimper of Whipped Dogs,' which predates this film by a couple of years.)
Cronenberg's later films were much more polished, but I daresay that he's never directed anything more purely entertaining--or more representative of his aesthetic--than "Shivers." You'll enjoy it if you're a fan of his other work, or of '70s horror in general. (Those whose tastes extend to horror in other forms of media may notice some parallels with Harlan Ellison's short story 'The Whimper of Whipped Dogs,' which predates this film by a couple of years.)