Just in time for Valentine’s Day, it’s David Cronenberg’s Rabid! This 1977 horror film was made in Montreal, Quebec, and had the support of the Canadian Film Development Corporation. Packed with Freudian imagery and a healthy dose of gore, Rabid is an intriguing film.
Cronenberg is one of my favourite directors and I find his work to be fascinating. His manipulation of sex and violence to provide shocking, stunning results is always something of note. He hasn’t abandoned those themes, either, as the recent Eastern Promises still demonstrates Cronenberg’s power as a director and his ability to create shocking yet compelling material. He is one of Canada’s best filmmakers, without question.
Rabid is Cronenberg’s fourth film. His horror films always investigate the terror as it comes from within, not from some sort of external monster. Rabid is no different, following up on the theme of his previous film, Shivers, by manipulating the vampire theme slightly and including a strange lesion as the source of all of the havoc. Cronenberg’s metaphorical sense is on overdrive, too, as the appearance of the lesion is an odd combination of a vaginal-looking parasite with a phallic insert that drills into its victims. This amalgamation of male and female sexual organs is an obvious allegory for unbridled sexuality and the rabid spread of disease, much like in Shivers.
Rabid stars Marilyn Chambers in her first non-pornographic role, which was clearly a risk. Chambers, who came to fame in films such as Beyond the Green Door, is actually quite good in her role as Rose. Rose is critically injured in a motorcycle accident with her boyfriend, Hart (Frank Moore). She undergoes surgery at a nearby clinic which specializes in experimental plastic surgery. After she comes out of a coma, Rose begins to develop a taste for blood and starts seeking out victims. As she takes victim after victim, rabies begins to spread through a lesion on her body. An epidemic of rabies takes over Montreal, leading to martial law and all sorts of other chaos.
One thing Rabid does well is continue to keep its audience in a state of discomfort. Cronenberg has a knack for creating solid impact and sudden gore. In each of his films, he creates such bold impact with his camera, shattering glass or metal into twisted heaps of trash right before our very eyes. His work in films like Crash, Eastern Promises, and A History of Violence highlights the immediacy that he expresses towards violence and impact. Rabid is no different. One example of this is the car crash sequence, as the effects of it are shattering and intense without being gratuitous. Cronenberg doesn’t sit the camera in strange positions to shoot the scene, but rather he plants it right where an eyewitness would be and lets the true terror of the situation play out naturally. It is an organic experience that adds to the detail and the mood of the film.
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