Shiver Shack

The Shiver Shack is a 48 minute documentary film of interviews with elderly Americans who recall an earlier period in their lives when they didn't have access to modern plumbing and used an exterior privy or outhouse. Outhouses were a standard feature of American homes before the mid-20th century. The film was produced in 2000 by Roberta Pacino, half-sister of actor Al Pacino, and her husband Mark Richman, and features several minutes of the comedy of Shelley Richter, known as "Outhouse Annie".

Outhouses were simple wooden structures built outside of houses or farmsteads, consisting of a building with a wooden plank with one or more holes cut into it and placed over a deep pit. Before the advent of modern plumbing, outhouses were a standard feature of most rural farmsteads and houses in small towns.Toilet paper was not typically available, and catalogs or corn cobs were used. People interviewed in the Pacino-Richman documentary describe what it was like using an outhouse, cleaning it, taking care against spiders, scorpions and snakes, and common practical jokes involving privies. The interviewees also recall using the outhouse in the winter, when the cold wind came through the cracks, and in the summer, when the warmth attracted bees and created a pungent smell.

During the winters, people used a ceramic or metal jar placed next to the bed called a chamber pot, thundermug or slop jar. One of the WPA projects of the Depression was creating improved outhouses, with cement pits and solid structures.Vimeo: Shiver Shack (Time: 48:14)

"Snakes, and spiders and spiders webs. Black spiders, you always looked down the hole because you didn't know when they could bite ya."—unnamed interviewee in Shiver ShackVimeo: Shiver Shack (Time: 48:14)

"In the thirties, President Roosevelt with his WPA projects, he decided that it would be safer and it'd give people work to build the toilets better. And they would bring the men out and they would build cement pits, and then have a cement floor. And some of them were made out of wood and some of them were made out of brick.... They paid the men a dollar a day, for the work, and the people that had the money could afford to pay for the outhouses, paid $5 for the outhouses to the government."—unnamed interviewee in Shiver ShackVimeo: Shiver Shack (Time: 48:14)

• IMDb: Roberta Pacino (February 17, 2009)

• IMDb: The Shiver Shack

• Fandango: The Shiver ShackSynopsis

• Movie Zen: The Shiver Shack (2000)

• Vimeo: Shiver Shack (Time: 48:14)

• The Shiver Shack from Roberta Pacino on Vimeo.</hypertext>