Review of Rabid (1977) by Ifiok O — 21 Feb 2010

This is the second film from my favorite director, David Cronenberg. You can't really blame him for this mediocre crap though. A lot of directorsâ?? first films aren't that great. It's more of a "practice" film if anything.

His creativity was still pretty apparent from the start though. The concept here is a good twist on the classic old "epidemic outbreak" tale. It starts with a couple getting into a bad motorcycle accident, luckily right by some kind of hospital specializing in burn victims.

I say luckily because the girl is trapped under the bike, which explodes, engulfing in her flames. She gets a bunch of skin grafts. I must have missed something though, because she soon turns into a vampiric predator, who needs human blood to survive.

But, this being a Cronenberg film, she feeds through some kind of phallic member that bursts out of her skin, with a stinger that pops out of the tip. She goes on a blood-frenzy, attacking everyone she meets.

Her victims quickly turn into rabid zombies, with foaming mouths and pus leaking from their eyes. They bite everyone too, quickly spreading the epidemic. I think rabies was a bigger fear among the public back in the '70s, and Rabid completely takes that and runs with it.

The most interesting thing though is that the girl is a kind of "Typhoid Mary". Although she carries the disease, she is immune to all the symptoms yet can still spread it to others. But sadly, the whole film revolves around her vampiric attacks and then her victims attacking others, with nothing of any importance ever happening in between.

A remake would serve this film well. Rabid reminded me a lot of George A. Romero's early '70s film The Crazies, which I liked even less than this. The upcoming remake of that looks like a big improvement.

But still, David Cronenberg went on to become my all-time favorite filmmaker. FUCK Martin Scorsese, FUCK Steven Spielberg, no one else even compares..