‘Pray it doesn’t happen to you’
Rabid is a 1977 Canadian horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. It features porn star Marilyn Chambers in the lead role, supported by Frank Moore, Howard Ryshpan, Joe Silver, Patricia Gage, Susan Roman and Robert A. Silverman.
Cronenberg stated that he wanted to cast Sissy Spacek in the film lead, but the studio vetoed his choice because of her accent. Spacek’s film Carrie was released during this film’s production and proved to be a massive hit (and a movie poster for the film appears when the main character walks by a movie theater). The director says that the idea of casting adult movie star Marilyn Chambers came from executive producer Ivan Reitman (Cannibal Girls, Ghostbusters), who had heard that she was looking for a mainstream role.
Chambers plays a woman who, after being injured in a motorcycle accident and undergoing a surgical operation, develops an orifice under one of her armpits. The orifice hides a phallic stinger that she uses to feed on people’s blood. Those she feeds upon become rabid zombies, whose bite spreads the disease…
Reviews:
” … a film full of shocks as Cronenberg twists his supple narrative first this way then that in a surprisingly playful fashion. But if Rabid is a better-made film than The Parasite Murders (aka Shivers), it is also a far safer film.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction
“Rabid is the only Cronenberg film that wears its Canuck identity proudly on its sleeve. French accents, wintry locales, and rural farmlands reaffirm the sheer Canadian-ness of it all. The Canadian location is paramount, since the threat posed in Rabid is most effective in a society with a concentrated governmental control of services. Rabid proposes a broad examination of the cautions of state control, and the personalization of the Rose character forces us to care. It is an effective film, biting, clever, dark, timely and ultimately Canadian’. Canuxsploitation
- Limited Edition SteelBook packaging
- New High Definition Digital Transfer
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of the feature
- Original mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Audio Commentary with writer-director David Cronenberg
- Audio Commentary with William Beard, author of The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg
- Archive interview with David Cronenberg
- Brand new interview with executive producer Ivan Reitman
- Brand new interview with co-producer Don Carmody
- Make-up Memories: Joe Blasco Remembers Rabid – A short featurette in which Blasco recalls how the film’s various gruesome effects were achieved
- Raw, Rough and Rabid: The Lacerating Legacy of Cinépix – Featurette looking back at the early years of the celebrated Canadian production company, including interviews with author Kier-La Janisse and special makeup artist Joe Blasco
- The Directors: David Cronenberg – A 1999 documentary on the filmmaker, containing interviews with Cronenberg, Marilyn Chambers, Deborah Harry, Michael Ironside, Peter Weller and others
- Original Theatrical Trailer
- Collector’s Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Kier-La Janisse, reprinted excerpts of Cronenberg on Cronenberg and more, illustrated with original archive stills and posters.
Buy Rabid on Arrow Blu-ray + DVD Steelbook from Amazon.co.uk
Buy Rabid on Arrow Blu-ray + DVD (Reversible sleeve with original artwork) from Amazon.co.uk
“The infection aspect of the film, which was borrowed from heavily in 28 Days Later, is highly effective. The body count mounts high from either blood devouring or flesh munching. There’s shades of Dawn of the Dead as the frothing zombies terrorize a shopping mall, at Christmas time no less. It all amounts to an intense, claustrophobic feel in that the city of Montreal will be infested with these things in a short amount of time, and of course this would spread throughout Canada quickly as well’. Oh, the Horror!
“The first half of Rabid is by far the most effective, with its secluded hospital, simple music cues, and almost lackadaisical buildup to the eventual horror.” Matt Constantine, Daily Grindhouse
“The violence is not overly graphic but it is certainly memorable. Great practical effects, violence and a heaping helping of intensity all combine to make Rabid a perfect work of genre filmmaking.” Goregirl’s Dungeon
Offline reading:
Cronenberg on Cronenberg edited by Chris Rodley, Faber & Faber, 1996 - Buy from Amazon.co.uk
Thanks to Goregirl’s Dungeon and Daily Grindhouse for some images above and Thomas Eikrem of Filmrage for the scans of stills
Categories: 1970s, body horror, Canadian horror, infection horror, zombies
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