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The formal basis is Scooby Doo, it gets the analysis it deserves: "Jaded young deviants, that's us." In Bob Clark's spoof of independent filmmaking, the aesthete is a depraved despot (Alan Ormsby), chin-whiskered and striped-pantsed, who treats his theatrical troupe to a night of merry blasphemy. An island cemetery serves the crypt-defilers just fine, the ninny with delusions of grandeur does battle with the smartass sorceress (Valerie Mamches) over grave-rising incantations, the ensuing monster mash is the natural comeuppance to a necromantic prank taken too far. "It takes an artist to deal with the Devil." Solidly in the school of Corman and Wood and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, thus the very finest of abysmal wisecracks and offhand surrealism for Clark's mise en scène. The "not-so-holy-but-it's-okay" matrimony between the pretentious ass and a cadaver in bridal veil adduces an unexpected note from Viridiana, it's grubby but it works. Outdoors a searching lantern lights up the undead's eyes like a raccoon's mid-feast, not nearly as disturbing a spectacle as the protracted humiliation of the aspiring ingénue (Jane Daly). The most affable characters are the morbid starlet (Anya Ormsby) who brings a fine stoned gravity to the smarmy vaudeville, and the exhumed stiff (Seth Sklarey) who endures the tale's indignities in a tattered tuxedo until it's time to join the zombie raid. "Sort of makes him a ghoul, doesn't it? Boy, that's typecasting!" Cronenberg helps himself to the ending for Shivers. With Jeff Gillen, Paul Cronin, Roy Engleman, and Robert Philip.
--- Fernando F. Croce |