Shiver

Plot synopsis:
Regional Crime Unit officer Chan Kwok-ming (Francis Ng) and his wife, Sammi Mok (Athena Chu) were on the way to finalize their proceedings for separation where an armed robbery breaks out in the streets. Kwok-ming steps in to assist in hunting the criminals, but Sammi was hit by a stray bullet and was seriously injured, leading her into a coma. Several months later, Sammi awakes from her coma. Sammi's doctor, Ko Chuen (Nick Cheung) warns her to be especially careful with her body as her blood type is very rare.
Since Kwok-ming is often busy and handling cases at the police station, Sammi is left home along to recover and have been hallucinating often lately. One time, Sammi sees a female celebrity, Kitty Chow (Tiffany Lee), killed in her hallucination. While being skeptical, Sammi walks into the back alley of a bar and discovers the corpse of Kitty. Since then, Sammi's mental became more severe. When Kwok-ming wanted to take a leave at the police station, his supervisor demands him to cancel all his leaves and investigate the case of Kitty Chow's murder. One night, Kwok-ming returns home and sees the walls being covered in words written with blood. The same night, Sammi also goes mad and heads into the road, causing serious traffic congestion. Afterwards, Sammi was taken to hospital to be examined by a psychiatrist.
Meanwhile, Kwok-ming was investigating another case where a lawyer was murdered and discovers that the case is linked to the murder of Kitty Chow. While the crime scene, Kwok-ming shockingly witnesses the lawyer coming back to life and takes him to the hospital. In the hospital, Kwok-ming is informed that the lawyer requires an emergency blood transfusion from a rare blood type, which incidentally, happen to be the same blood type as Sammi. However, in this critical moment, Sammi mysteriously goes missing.

Tags: violence, murder

Review:
"Chuckle" would be more suitable.
It's too bad that I end up writing an overall negative review for "Shiver", as I truly and honestly wanted to like it!
I saw the film at a very small-scaled but charming Festival in my home country, and both director Julian Richards and writer/producer Robert D.
Weinbach were present for the screening Yes, sadly it wasn't lead actress Danielle Harris who traveled to Belgium for a visit.
Anyway, they are both very friendly gentlemen and truly proud of their accomplishment.
They describe "Shiver" as the first a deeply disturbing serial killer thriller in a very long time and supposedly also one of the first to draw a profound and genuinely realistic portrait of the psychopath.
Well, it's good that they're fond of their product, of course, but sadly all I watched was a dull, derivative and tremendously clichéd run-of-the-mill B-movie thriller.
John Jarratt, who my girlfriend immediately recognized from his role in the sappy soap series "MacLeod's Daughters", is immediately introduced as the murderous madman Vinnie even before the opening credits appear on screen.
So don't pay any attention to the other user comment around here claiming that the trailer reveals the identity of the killer You're meant to know right away.
Vinnie savagely strangles with a steel wire because he had a traumatizing childhood.
This gets illustrated trough a flashback in which we witness two bullies crushing little Vinnie's glasses.
Now if such a vile act doesn't turn you into a relentless and misogynous serial killer, then what does?
Vinnie leaves a big trail of bloody massacres behind in Oregon's Portland, and in spite of his rather rude and careless modus operandi, the dumb police inspector Casper Van Dien doesn't have a clue how to catch him.
Then one night, Vinnie breaks into the apartment of cute single lady Wendy Alden.
When she narrowly survives Vinnie's assault, he becomes obsessed with her and convinced that they belong together.
What ensues is an incredibly tedious and predictable cat-and-mouse game, featuring all the clichés you can think of.
Our killer literally pops up everywhere around Wendy, even in places where he couldn't possibly guess she is there, and "Shiver" quickly becomes ridiculous beyond proportions.
Near the climax, Vinnie goes on a sickening blood rampage that is actually laughable instead of disturbing, and the final confrontation between him and Wendy is then again quite tame.
Horror princess Danielle Harris ("Halloween", "Hatchet") gives a good performance and the make-up effects are pleasingly gross, but the film is far too weak in the scripting and executing departments..
Uneven Psychological Thriller.
Based on a novel of the same name, "Shiver" delivers only occasionally.
The predictable, derivative screen story gains a little traction from performances, but not enough to keep it afloat.
Among these are uneven performances by Danielle Harris (some of her scenes are quite good) as the wallflower office worker Wendy Alden, and John Jarrett as the serial killer Franklin Rood, who stalks her.
(But don't expect anything close his creepy performance in "Wolf Creek").
Casper Van Dien and Rae Dawn Chong do quite well in their performances as the detectives on the loony's trail.
The central problem is the script, which may not do justice to the novel: the main characters are flat and under-developed; the police and corrections officers are presented as incredibly incompetent.
And the rationale behind the crimes is unexplored; evidently a single traumatic event in Rood's childhood drives him over the edge.
The camera work is fine, and the editing sharp, though a little jagged.
Taken on its own terms the jazz soundtrack is okay, but it seems to belong to another film..
Solid Performance by Harris In A So-So Film.
Shiver tells the story of Wendy (Danielle Harris), a young woman who is struggling with financial issues, has no time for dating, and has a not-so-close relationship with her mother.
When Wendy is targeted by a killer known as The Gryphon (John Jarratt), she must use her smarts and the strength she never knew she had in order to escape from becoming a part of The Gryphon's "collection".
Shiver is a film that is slightly different for Scream Queen Danielle Harris.
Instead of starring in a typical by-the-numbers slasher film, she's now the prime focus of a psychopath, as well as the prime focus of the viewer.
Harris by far gives her strongest performance in this film.
We watch as her character tries to stay calm in times of great terror, but when the time comes for her to fight, Harris plays it off with great strength and ease.
Beside Harris we have John Jarratt, whom is well-known for his role as the psychotic killer in the film Wolf Creek.
Jarratt is back again playing another psycho.
While he definitely played his role well, he really didn't put as much effort into it as he did in Wolf Creek.
But he does do a good job of trying to show both sides of his character's personality.
He can go from calm one moment, but then completely creepy and crazy the next.
As for the film itself, it isn't really anything to write home about.
It keeps a person interested mostly because of the cat and mouse game between our protagonist and antagonist.
It's not one of the greatest films ever, nor is it a stand out film of it's kind, but it's at least worth checking out if one's ever interested.
But the performances of Harris and Jarratt are what makes the film worth seeing, especially the strong performance by Harris.My rating: 6/10.
Danielle Harris Makes Shiver Worth Watching.
In nearly every respect, Shiver is just another movie about just another demented serial killer.
But a viewer who sticks with it, will see that the lead Woman in Peril played by Danielle Harris is far from the typical panicked screaming and annoying victim.
Ms. Harris delivers an impressively nuanced performance in a movie that on most respects is totally lacking in nuance.
True.
Even with another actress in the lead role.
Shiver's unpretentiousness would be refreshing (except for the very Carrie-esque final few scenes).
But Danielle Harris' performance as an alternately tough, angry and frightened young Portlander is worth a watch purely on its own merits..
Great Movie!.
I was lucky enough to get to see this movie at a screening and I really don't want to say much about the movie because you need to see it yourself and be surprised.
But it is very WELL worth your time to watch.
Danielle Harris did an outstanding job with her role and the script was very well written.
I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and there were a lot of things I was NOT expecting to happen.
Overall I would give the movie a 10/10 because it was good.
I'm a big supporter of Indie films and respect them so much and I think this has to be one of my favorite B movies along with Stakeland which Danielle also happens to be in oddly enough.
So give the movie a watch you won't regret it!.
Danielle Harris and John Jarratt are the only reasons to watch Shiver..
Shiver is one of those straight to stream movies, that you can easily miss, but I try to catch these when I can.
9 times out of 10 they suck but when I saw Danielle Harris was one of the stars, I knew it might be good and I'm pleased to say, her performance, along side John Jarratt, who plays our resident psycho, manages to take a bland story and turn it up a few notches.
They are the strength of this movie and without their solid turns as Psycho Serial Killer vs The Final Girl, this movie would've fallen flat.
When they aren't the focus (and thankfully they get most of the screen time in the second and third acts) Shiver becomes boring, with Casper Van Dien (what happened to you Casper?) as the cop on the case, and Rae Dawn Chong (the stewardess from Commando) as his partner, sleepwalking through their parts.It's a decent horror and the blood and terror builds as the movie goes along.
It won't win any awards and I don't see it ending up on any Best Of lists, but the performances of the two lead actors make for an entertaining watch..
Complete wastage of time.
I usually watch online movies by first review ing it on imdb.
On finding good reviews only then I watch films...but I ignored the review about Shiver...& I paid the price...I wasted nearly one & half hour on a most foolish movie of Hollywood I have ever seen......No storyline...No thrill...So guys go through reviews before watching any Hollywood movie.....
To Say It Strains Credibility Isn't Going Far Enough.
Franklin Rood is a serial killer - RUDE....GET IT??That's about the extent of the depth of this POS.
John Jarratt is the most annoying serial killer ever.
Half retarded and....half retarded.
He's a serial killer because someone broke his glasses.
Seriously.
We know he's a "genius" because he knows Edgar Allen Poe. And he's smart enough to scream "NOT SO SMART NOW, ARE YOU?" after he kills the woman who misquoted The Raven.
Wendy is a gorgeous wallflower, too timid to ask for a raise, but magically becomes a tigress street-smart enough to slip a knife up her sleeve when she feels threatened and calm enough to continue to slip away when threatened.
Adding insult to injury are jazz standards that pound away on the soundtrack.
Most stalker movies you have some kind of kinship with the killer.
This guy you just want dead.
And not in a good way..
Danielle Harris makes this derivative serial killer film tolerable.
Wendy Alden has a boring job, lack of self-esteem, and a love life that she is reluctant to fully commit to.
To make matters worse, a notorious serial killer is killing off women in her area.
Wendy encounters the killer and manages to escape from a near-death experience.
In order to survive, Wendy is gonna have to outsmart the killer at any cost.
I only watched this because of Danielle Harris, I think the woman is immensely talented, even when she is dealing with sub par scripts.
There isn't really anything overly original in this one, it's fairly derivative, but it does what it can with the material it has.
It has a bit of an old school feel to it and isn't afraid to push boundaries.
it also has some decent psychology in it as well.
I did think they could have delved further into the serial killer's plight because he just seemed like a typical killer with family issues growing up.
While I will give it credit for doing what it can with the material, it's too derivative to be that effective.
How many times have we seen a perverted serial killer hack off beautiful women over the years?
Its been done to death.
There are a couple of questionable plot holes as well.
How did the killer survive the car going off a cliff?
It isn't fully explained.
I wondered how the police could be so incompetent at times.
Poor camera work at times is also an issue.
Gore hounds should be at least content with the amount of violence.
We get a nasty slit throat, and an eye is gouged out.
Bloody corpses, gunshot wounds, and severed heads add to the fun as well.
The harshest part may have been the scene with the pregnant woman, I thought that was effectively brutal.
The acting is decent.
Danielle Harris is excellent as our heroine.
It was nice to see they didn't fully go the way of the damsel in distress.
She is very vulnerable, but the strong heroine you'd expect her to be as well.
John Jarrett ranges from hammy to good.
There were times where I thought he was outstanding with his work, others where he was too OTT.
He was a bit too whiny for me in all honesty at times.
Casper Van Dien is OK.
He got this weird smirk on his face at the weirdest times.
An underrated favorite of mine, Rae Dawn Chong has a small part as wellI tried to be as fair as I could with this review.
For what it is, I felt it did some good things.
It can be suspenseful at times with some great acting (Harris especially) , but there is nothing that special about it.
It's just another serial killer film that is carried by Danielle Harris.
Harris fans and fans of the genre will find a few things to like about this one5/10