Dr. Emil Hobbes (Fred Doederlin) is conducting unorthodox experiments with parasites for use in transplants, however, he believes that humanity has become over-rational and lost contact with its flesh and its instincts, so the effects of the organism he actually develops is a combination aphrodisiac and venereal disease. Once implanted, it causes uncontrollable sexual desire in the host. Hobbes implants the parasites in his teen-aged mistress, who promiscuously spreads them throughout the ultra-modern apartment building, outside Montreal, where they live. The community’s resident physician, Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton), and his assistant, Nurse Forsythe (Lynn Lowry) attempt to stop the parasite infestation before it overwhelms the city’s population. —wikipedia
David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father was a journalist, and his mother was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early age (he wrote and published eerie short stories, thus following his father’s path) and for music (playing classical guitar until he was 12), Cronenberg graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Literature after switching from the science department. He reached the cult status of horror-meister with the gore-filled, modern-vampire variations of Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), following an experimental apprenticeship in independent filmmaking and in Canadian television programs.
Cronenberg gained popularity with the head-exploding, telepathy-based Scanners (1981) after the release of the much underrated, controversial, and autobiographical The Brood (1979). Cronenberg become a sort… read more
Cronenberg's first take on the body politic: the horror of the flesh: sexual obsessions; the pornographic undertones; the violence of modern life; morality.......... The themes that would come up in his subsequent work again and again. IN other words a 'deep' horror film that also delivers on its ability to shock, titilate and repulse. Still holds up in the Cronenberg canon even with the obviously tight budget.
Operatic in its own twisted way and always uncompromising, this is Cronenberg's Night of the Living Dead. And I would kill for a sequel.
“You got men, you got parasites that live in, on, and around men. Now. Why not breed a parasite that does something useful? Eh? Why not breed a parasite capable of taking over the function of any one… read review
David Cronenberg’s first commercial feature. A scientist invents a parasite that is part aphrodisiac, part venereal disease. It gets unleashed on an upscale apartment complex and an apocalyptic orgy… read review