Rabid SE
By Chris Hyde
June 21, 2004
Intellectualized horror meets infamous Ivory Snow girl in this disturbing tale of experimental plastic surgery gone wrong.
By 1977, director David Cronenberg had made a number of short films as well as the feature-length parasite trip Shivers (aka They Came From Within). This mid-'70s picture did not get out without controversy, as it had been made mainly with money provided by the Canadian government and after the movie was blasted by prominent critics, there was some reluctance to give this filmmaker any more hard-earned tax dollars. But Shivers had one particular quality that made its existence a rarity among all of the projects churned out by the grace of grants at that time — it actually turned a profit. With this trump card in hand, Cronenberg eventually managed to squeeze enough cash out of the feds to make a second full-length motion picture.
This next foray into cinematic terror would be the film Rabid, a story that fixates on many of the themes that Cronenberg continues to explore right on up to the present day. The movie centers on the plight of a young woman named Rose who is involved in a motorcycle accident and has to undergo a radical plastic surgery technique in order to repair the damage done to her in the incident. Accentuating the exploitation aspect of this role is the fact that the part is played by Marilyn Chambers, the notorious star of a number of Golden Age adult films including the phenomenally successful Behind the Green Door. Having gotten her celluloid start with a small part in The Owl and the Pussycat, Chambers had always harbored a desire for a career in the straight cinema — and her lead spot in Rabid gave her the chance to demonstrate that her skills were more than simply sexy.
Though Chambers is surely no award winner as an actress, in the part of Rose she proves to have a natural facility for dramatic work that makes her quite a nice choice here. While we aren’t really given much of a chance to know what she was like prior to the bike crash, as the events of the plot play out she gives a very capable performance that makes her character sympathetic to the audience. For poor Rose’s tribulations only begin with the accident and explosion that ravage her torso; it’s the experimental surgery that follows that really throws her life into utter turmoil.
As is often the case with director Cronenberg’s films, much of the action revolves around the body and the ways in which humans try to alter their corporeal presence. This filmmaker has always been fascinated with the transmogrification of the flesh and also has never shied away from exploring the medical establishment’s involvement in these processes. Here he takes a critical look at the world of plastic surgery, as it is the new techniques used by Dr. Dan Keloid (Howard Ryshpan) that lead Rose to her fate. The unproven techniques that the doctor utilizes undoubtedly save Rose’s life, but unfortunately, they also lead her to become affixed with a phallic appendage that demands human blood as sustenance. But the nasty side effects don’t stop there, since her biotechnological vampirism also turns the hosts that she feeds off into contagious biters with a penchant for erratic behavior.
Needless to say, the appearance of plenty of disease-crazed contagious maniacs doesn’t do much for society overall, and in many ways what happens during the course of Rabid is much akin to the action in similar films like George Romero’s The Crazies. Anonymous federal workers in protective suits head out to control the population, though they seem somewhat less concerned than they should be about finding the vector for the epidemic. With this oversight, Rose manages to make it to Montreal where she meets up with her best friend and waits for an eventual reunion with the boyfriend (Frank Moore) who was driving the motorcycle she was on when all of these horrible events were set in motion.
Rabid is an excellent example of Cronenberg’s early style - though it’s perhaps not as effective as The Brood — and the film comes with plenty to recommend it. But how does this brand new Special Edition from Ventura Entertainment stack up? On the positive side are the uncut status of the film and the included extras, with some good production stills, photos, talent bios and an interview and smart commentary from director David Cronenberg all on the DVD. While the filmmaker’s comments tend much more towards intellectual blathering than nitty-gritty detail (don’t expect too much in the way of anecdotes about cast members or locations), he’s so intimately connected with his material that he provides a ton of information about the nature of his work.
On the negative side, however, is what didn’t make the disk as well as some weakness in the digital presentation. The former omission involves a commentary that Marilyn Chambers was supposedly going to provide for Rabid, and it’s a shame that at least an interview with the star couldn’t have been obtained for inclusion here. The second bit of letdown involves the non-anamorphic transfer that is both somewhat faded and slightly misframed. It is in no way so poor that it makes the film in any way unwatchable, but it’s just a bit disheartening that the Special Edition of this '70s horror outing doesn’t come with a pristine transfer that contains all the information of the theatrical presentation.
That said, though, this newest version of one of David Cronenberg’s early Canadian films remains a valuable addition to the collection of any fan of this unique director or even his adult starlet. The thrills of the filmmaker’s early low budget work are much more gutbucket in nature than the headier nuances of his post-Fly output, which this viewer has found ultimately somewhat disappointing. (Though existenZ and Spider were more or less up to snuff, most of the director’s other films since the late '80s have seemed a bit flat to these eyes.) In any case - though it certainly has its flaws - this new edition of one of the initial cinematic works by a true Canadian original deserves a long look from any real aficionado of the horror genre.
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