film opened in the United States under the title They Came From Within, with regional showings beginning in San Antonio, Texas, on September 26, 1975. It was released in Montreal on October 10, 1975, distributed by Cinépix. Both Shivers and The Parasite Murders were used as titles in Canada, as well as Frissons for Francophone Canada. Shivers was used in the United Kingdom. Home media The film was released on DVD by Image Entertainment on September 16, 1998. On September 15, 2020, Lionsgate issued the film on Blu-ray in the United States as part of its Vestron Video Collector's Series. This release includes, among other features, a new commentary by Cronenberg. Reception Making $1 million in Canada, Shivers was one of the highest-grossing English-language Canadian films of all time, and more profitable than any previous Canadian film. Critical reaction to the initial release of the movie was negative, however. Of a selection of 28 reviews from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and France, 16 reviews were negative—12 of these very negative—versus 6 that were positive. Of the positive reviews, 3 were very positive. 6 reviews were neutral. Canadian critics such as Martin Knelman, in The Globe and Mail, and Dane Larnken, in the Montreal Gazette, gave the film negative reviews. American critic Roger Ebert noted that while he expected Shivers to be a dismal exploitation film, since it was part of a double bill with the purported snuff film Snuff, he instead was impressed by much of the movie. He gave it 2 stars. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of based on reviews from critics, with an average rating of . The site's consensus states, "Shivers uses elementally effective basic ingredients to brilliant and lays the profoundly unsettling foundation for director David Cronenberg's career to follow". Canadian journalist Robert Fulford (writing as Marshall Delaney) decried the content of Shivers in the national magazine Saturday Night. Since Cronenberg's film was partially financed by the taxpayer-funded Canadian Film Development Corporation (later known as Telefilm Canada), Fulford headlined the article with "You should know how bad this film is. After all, you paid for it." He called it "crammed with blood, violence and depraved sex", and "the most repulsive movie I've ever seen." Not only did this high-profile attack make it more difficult for Cronenberg to obtain funding for his subsequent movies, but, according to Cronenberg, the