Horror cinema typically falls into two categories: laughably clichéd or uniquely terrifying. David Cronenberg’s first full-length feature film, Shivers, while suffering somewhat from the ravages of time, succeeds completely in the latter.

Paul Hampton stars as Roger St. Luc, a doctor based in a high-rise apartment complex that is also the scene of a recent and grizzly murder. However, investigations into the crime reveal that the victim was merely playing host to the real threat: an aggressive manmade parasite that has been unwittingly unleashed into the building. Soon, the unsuspecting residents fall one by one to the creature, turning into mindless, sex-crazed and violent ‘zombies’ who pass on the deadly passenger through sexual contact.

Focusing on themes such as urban paranoia, contemporary city living and sexual violence, the real horror – as the film’s tagline so famously put it – ‘lies within’. Marking Cronenberg’s first foray into the disturbing realms of body horror that have set him apart from other directors, Shivers, which also stars ’70s horror scream queens, Barbara Steele and Lynn Lowry, retains an authentic and haunting sense of unease throughout.

Filmed after the sexual revolution of the ’60s, but before the AIDS epidemic of the ’80s, Shivers now presents an almost prophetic vision of the late 20th century. Watching the film today, with knowledge and hindsight of what was to come just a few years after its release, makes it more terrifying than perhaps even Cronenberg could have imagined or intended in 1975. It speaks to our fears of not having control of our own bodies, of violation, betrayal and claustrophobia. It forces us to gaze at the excess of society and implies that we are never far away from the complete destruction of civilisation, and perhaps the human race itself. Shivers is undoubtedly a ’70s horror, but its themes remain timeless.