‘He’s gone crazy, he’s killing everyone!‘
The best filmmakers can overcome budgetary restraints by sheer vision and craft alone. Sam Raimi, George Romero, Wes Craven… All these guys started out making super low-budget films that still packed a punch. Canadian body-horror pioneer David Cronenberg is no different. His early films are cheap, nasty and gruesomely effective. Relying on funding from the Canadian Film Development Corporation (much to the disgust of many people around at the time, it seems), Rabid was Cronenberg’s follow-up to his apartment block infection movie, Shivers, and it’s essentially more of the same but on a wider scale and with fewer weird sex scenes…
Following a horrific car crash and experimental facial reconstruction surgery, Rose Miller (Marilyn Chambers) becomes a blood-sucking lunatic with a weird pincer thing growing out of her armpit. Welcome to David Cronenberg. Her frequent attacks on others lead to an outbreak of what the authorities believe to be a variation of rabies but is actually an outbreak of weird pincer things growing out of people’s armpits.
Apparently written in response to the October Crisis of 1970 in which martial law was declared in several Canadian cities (including Montreal where the film was shot), Rabid might be an overtly political film, but its main concern is being as gross as possible, as is Cronenberg’s wont. The use of makeup and prosthetics is suitably grotesque, and a bigger budget brings access to better talent. Chambers brings a degree of competence to her performance here superior to anything in Shivers.
While Rabid offers an insight into the juxtaposition between wider societal issues and disgusting body horror, this one is for horror completists or infection enthusiasts only, although the hospital scene is worth the admission price alone.
