Sticky End
Pool Party
The Movie: Shivers (1975)
The Moment: Cronenberg's feature-length debut reaches a climax with this nightmarish scene, in which Dr. Hobbes is forced into a swimming pool by a group of the infected, and has the parasite transmitted into his body. That's civilisation's last hope of resistance up in smoke, then…
Craziest Element: The scene plays out like a twisted kind of baptism, which develops fairly swiftly into a terrifying pool-set orgy. Horrifying stuff.
Kaboom
The Movie: Scanners (1981)
The Moment: A ConSec scanner gives a televised press conference in which he attempts to convince the public that the enforced round-up of scanners is beneficial to all concerned. Sadly for him, his conciliatory message is rudely interrupted by Darryl Revok, who doesn't take kindly to what the suit has to say…
Craziest Element: The sheer shock value of the moment when the scanner's head explodes is difficult to top. Cronenberg certainly doesn't skimp on the gore, either, with the luckless fellow's cranium erupting in a geyser of blood.
Stomach Ache
The Movie: Videodrome (1983)
The Moment: Cronenberg takes his body horror obsession to the extreme with this ghastly sequence in which Max Renn plunges a gun into a gaping orifice that suddenly appears in his stomach. Gaaaah!
Craziest Element: The stomach-wound is even ickier than Rosanna Arquette's scar in Crash . It makes us cringe, every time.
Motherly Love
The Movie: The Brood (1979)
The Moment: Nola welcomes another member to her murderous brood, ripping open her external womb to welcome her latest delivery into the world. Possibly the most upsetting birth scene ever committed to celluloid (although John Hurt might have something to say about that), it's one of Cronenberg's most shocking scenes.
Craziest Element: The way in which Nola licks the gunge off her newborn child is the grisly icing on the cake. Bleurgh…
