DAILY CALL SHEET: SEPTEMBER 27, 2024

 

Shivers (1975) Believing the world has become far too reliant on intellect, a crazed scientist living inside a ritzy high-rise apartment complex unleashes slug-like parasites that turns anyone infected by them into an insatiable sex maniac. One doctor fights to keep his head while all those about him are losing theirs, but can he hold out long enough to stop the epidemic from spreading outside the building? This debut from the master of body horror is, whether he meant it to be or not, about as unsubtle an allegory on the perils of the Sexual Revolution as one can get. That's fine, though, as nobody really comes to early Cronenberg looking for nuance anyway.

TIL: Thanks to penicillin and the pill, the Sexual Revolution was in full swing by the time Pope Paul VI released Humanae Vitae. In that 1968 encyclical, the Pontiff warned that the so-called freedoms promised by that cultural movement would actually result in widespread divorce, the destruction of the nuclear family, the collapse of traditional marriage, an unprecedented increase in abortions, and ultimately, the overall devaluing of human life. Most of the world laughed... at the time.

I HAVE SOME NOTES: More thoughts on my daily Scripture readings as filtered through my suspect sensibilities.