SYNOPSICS
Rabid (1977) is a English movie. David Cronenberg has directed this movie. Marilyn Chambers,Frank Moore,Joe Silver,Howard Ryshpan are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1977. Rabid (1977) is considered one of the best Horror,Sci-Fi movie in India and around the world.
In Camelford, while swinging his van across a narrow road to make a u-turn, a driver stalls the vehicle that does not restart. Hart Read is driving his motorcycle with his girlfriend Rose and he drives off the road to avoid the collision. Hart suffers minor injuries while Rosie is injured and burned by the flames when the motorcycle explodes. The ambulance from the nearby Keloid Clinic for Plastic Surgery brings the couple and Rose, who is in coma, is submitted to an emergency surgery and to an experimental plastic-surgery technique by Dr. Dan Keloid to retrieve her skin in the chest and abdomen. Hart is discharged but Rose stays in coma in the intensive care unit (ICU) to recover. Out of the blue, Rose awakens from her coma one month later and screams. A nurse helps her but is wounded by her and then he cannot remember what has happened. He is sent to a hospital in Montreal while Rose realizes that she needs to feed with blood. However her victims become zombie-like creatures. Rose ...
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Rabid (1977) Reviews
Cronenberg Keeps Me Out of Canada
Rabid or Rage ( do American's therefore not know what Rabid means ) begins and ends like Lawrence of Arabia: a motorcycle crash and a high body count. The similarity ends there. Marilyn Chambers - the woman who occupies the dreams and fantasies of millions - seemingly recovers from this accident only to develop an appetite for blood. Rabid is a modern, urban vampire film, and who better to direct it than Cronenberg. In the hands of another, this film would be horrifically mediocre. The lonely country lane, the frozen body, the subway attack, the Santa shooting in the mall and the dark movie theatre - Cronenberg knows how to imbue a sense of emptiness and despair into each scene. The film is full of pathos and 70's paranoia. Fear of woman (especially such a sexual one - Eve and such like), fear of government and fear of those around us - Cronenberg feeds off such hysteria, just as Chambers feeds off her victims. The underarm worm is quite clearly a female penis. I don't mean to make Rabid sound grand or profound. It isn't really. It's just Outbreak meets Vampire Circus. I do think, however, that Cronenberg always seeks to challenge Western values and boundaries by using hidden evils, distortions and deformed humanity. Marilyn of course looks fantastic, and she is frequently topless. As an adolescent I was attracted and haunted by the idea of being attacked by such a woman. "No, no, don't go, it's freezing cold - hold me." You know that if you do, death will shortly follow, but who could resist?
Creepy early Cronenberg
The second big-screen feature from Canadian horror genius David Cronenberg was this twisted well-done low budgeter. Following a motorcycle wreck, a young woman receives skin grafts that cause her to have a murderous thrust for blood - which leads to a deadly plague. Rabid is one nicely done little shocker. It has a clever storyline that's a unique take on the vampire/zombie genres. The makeup work is gruesomely good, the atmosphere cold and fitting, and the low-budget ambiguously well used to create a horror film that was a bit ahead of its time. In addition the cast isn't bad. Star Marylin Chambers, though better known as a porn actress, does a decent performance as the victim of the strange infection. Frank Moore is also good as Chambers' boyfriend who must save her before disaster strikes. While granted that Rabid isn't as great as the films that Cronenberg would later unleash (The Brood, Videodrome, Dead Zone etc.) it is never the less a solid sophomore effort that well-foreshadowed the greatness Cronenberg would achieve in his later films. *** out of ****
David Cronenberg's second feature film!
Rabid (1977) is a strange film about a parasitic virus that inhabit's the body of a young woman (Marilyn Chambers). She receives this strange mutation after a new experimental procedure is performed upon her after she and her boyfriend were involved in a motorcycle accident. The doctors at a plastic surgery clinic save her life but her body revolts and mutates against the new cellular structure. The staff at the clinic and it's patients must answer for trying to defy nature. A very good film from David Cronenberg. He further explores the topic of man fighting mutations from within or trying to change human nature. it's a topic that he returns to from time to time. He started off from Shivers and continued it in Rabid, The Brood, Scanners and Videodrome. Like most of his earlier films, this one was shot in around around the province of Quebec. Partially funded by the Canadian government, this twisted low budget wonder is a must for cerebral horror fans and Cronenberg devotees. Rabid benefits from the director's trademark clinical and cold aura. I have to highly recommend this flick. the one I saw clocked it at almost 92 minutes. I haven't seen this film in awhile. I watched it on a D.V.D. import from Canada. I don't know how long the U.S. release was but this version seemed to have a little more blood than the one I watched seven years ago on an old V.H.S. copy. The Canadian Disc had a feature length commentary by David Cronenberg, a twenty some odd minute interview and a few other extras. The movie was restored and in it's proper film format. Highly recommended.
Good, ambitious low-budgeter.
I really enjoy gritty, low-key horror films like this one. The story revolves around Hart (Frank Moore) and Rose (porn queen Marilyn Chambers), a young couple involved in a motorcycle accident. Rose undergoes an emergency experimental skin graft operation and emerges as a plague-spreading pseudo-vampire who extracts blood via a syringe-style growth that has developed on her body. It's an interesting, original take of vampirism, especially the aspect that her victims get sick and turn homicidal ("Rabid," I guess). In my opinion, this is Cronenberg's best 70s movie (I enjoyed it more than THEY CAME FROM WITHIN/SHIVERS and THE BROOD, also good horror films). The story is intelligent, very well thought out and full of political and social context if you want it. The horror scenes are creepy and effective. Chambers is beautiful and has a killer body, for sure, but she also delivers a surprisingly good performance. You can tell she was savoring this non-hardcore role and probably hoped for more of the same after this, but it just wasn't in the cards for her. Too bad. The rest of the cast was acceptable. I wish they made more films like this nowadays!
Fascinating second feature from the master of body horror
A biker called Rose crashes near an unorthodox surgery. She is taken there for emergency treatment which entails a new experimental skin graft operation. Rose develops a phallic appendage that she uses to attain human blood, the only thing that can sustain her new biology. In doing so she maims her victims, transmitting a form of rabies onto them. David Cronenberg's debut feature Shivers was extremely bold, original and visceral. He followed it up with Rabid which explores similar territory. In some ways it's a more expansive film but overall less intense. In this story the virus affects a whole city, so Cronenberg is able to incorporate more locations and action. On the other hand it's less claustrophobic than the Ballardian nightmare that was the apartment block in Shivers. It would only be fair to say that the science is somewhat less clear and more ambiguous in Rabid too. We never really know how it comes to be that Rose develops the vagina/penis mutation. All we know for sure is that it's an unexpected side effect of the experimental skin graft surgery. We also never really understand Rose's motivations, although it does seem like she is unaware of her blood lust. What is for sure though is that Rabid is another extremely interesting entry in Cronenberg's cycle of body horror movies that underlines his genius. When the director was informed once that he was the king of venereal horror he replied 'it's a small field but at least I'm king of it'. In order to give their movie an angle over the multitude of other low budget horror films, the production company Cinépix suggested Marilyn Chambers for the lead role. At the time she was the world's number one porn actress, so her presence would guarantee the film some automatic visibility. As it turned out, she was very good in the lead role and certainly suggested that she could have done more proper acting. The film itself is an interesting twist on the vampire myth, with the influence of George Romero never far from the surface with some references to the likes of The Crazies. Pleasingly, as well as being as idiosyncratic as Cronenberg is, Rabid also works as a pure horror film. There are plenty of gory set-pieces and grotesque rabid lunatics. The Canadian setting provides other value too. The cold landscapes and sterile urban architecture really accentuates the feel that Cronenberg is going for, while the ending is very nihilistic and just perfect for this story.