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Rose is involved in a motorbike accident. She is rushed to the nearest hospital where
she undergoes experimental surgery and as a consequence develops a weird mutated organ,
a kind of stinger beneath her armpit through which she drinks people's blood. She flees
the hospital unaware that those she feeds off of become rabid, attacking others and
in so doing spreading the virus. The government tries to control the epidemic declaring martial
law while Rose's boyfriend desperately tries to track her down before it's too late.
When Canadian auteur David Cronenberg first came onto the scene he was likened to other
genre luminaries such as Tobe Hooper and George Romero for low budget exploitation horror
flicks that contained deeper social and political subtexts. And Rabid from 1977 is a fine example
which owes a certain debt to Romero's The Crazies.
This surrealist vampire/viral epidemic b-movie begins with a plastic surgery clinic that's
setting up a kind of franchise resort.
This neatly sets up the idea of bodily alteration and transformation - classic Cronenberg concerns.
Rose unwittingly undergoes the experimental surgery that sets off the chain of horrors
to follow. But this isn't a Frankenstein morality tale. The surgeon is utterly benevolent in
his intent. That's not to say he doesn't get his comeuppance - he does - only that there
is no sense that he's paying for any wrong doing.
In fact throughout the film is completely non-judgmental despite all the carnage there
are no incidental characters set up to be killed because they are in some way deserving
of punishment as is common in horror movies. For all the film's bleak nihilism, it's not
without a genuine sense of humanity.
Well, for the most part, at least. There is an exception. An attempted *** becomes
one of Rose's first victims. She doesn't feed off of him however. In fact he's the only
one of her victims that she doesn't feed off of.
Once Rose's mutation has manifested, together with her need for human blood, the film's
narrative splits into two distinct paths that of Rose herself and her bloodlust, and the
spread of the virus. This thread plays out as the more conventional strand, depicting
the escalating panic and chaos through a series of horror vignettes. It here that the comparison
to The Crazies is most notable. Like something from a disaster movie we get a nice balance
of creeping tension and shock sequences as the disease spreads wider with each successive
attack and there's also some fairly elaborate stuntwork for a film with such a limited budget.
Not to mention a streak of black humour.
And Cronenberg certainly knows how to play on modern anxieties. A surgery sequence for
example where the surgeon has become infected and will become Rabid at any moment is a quintessential
scene of modernist horror. Not to mention the whole premise of the epidemic in a society
obsessed with health scares and paranoid about infection.
The film may have been made over thirty years ago but its themes and concerns at least haven't
dated in the slightest.
The other narrative strand focuses on Rose. The horror on show here is far more intimate
and insidious as Cronenberg explores what would quickly come to be known as one of his
signatures - a strong sense of body-horror.
Though the mutation is vampiric in nature it has none of the standard trappings. The
feeding scenes are deeply sexualised (as is fairly common in vampire myth) but Cronenberg
subverts traditional imagery effectively making it utterly his own unique vision and allowing
him to play around with deeply unsettling ideas and visuals.
Part surrealism, the blending of the fantastical with visual symbolism. Rose feeds through
a mutated organ, sucking blood through a *** stinger, a twisted metaphor made flesh her
body literally transformed into a *** disease that subverts and pollutes even as it relentlessly
consumes.
Whereas the infected Rabid are more akin to zombies, mindless and driven purely by violent
impulse, Rose retains the semblance of health and reason, her violent impulses only coming
to light when she feeds.
The film could be misconstrued as a misogynistic fear of female sexuality, a warning against
predatory woman or against promiscuity (Rose goes about trawling for men to prey upon happily
oblivious of the chaos wrought in her wake) but that's too simplistic and reductive an
interpretation and Rose is as much a victim of her mutation as anyone else. It's also
an argument that utterly fails to appreciate Cronenberg's weird fascination with bizarre
convolutions of the flesh and the note of celebration of renegade sexuality.
Her mutation is an amalgamation of male and female flesh and Rose becomes a physical manifestation
of the disease itself. Cronenberg is quoted as saying his films should be viewed from
the point of view of the disease as much as from the characters. In Rabid Rose's character
is kept deliberately ambiguous, she is little more than a metaphor herself, barely fleshed
out; nor do we see anything of her prior to the mutation. (There is no comparison between
what she was and what she has become as would be a necessary convention in a standard horror
film.) She becomes merely the carrier indicative of Cronenberg's viewpoint that the disease
is as prevalent as the character. She takes on the parasitic aspects necessary to fulfil
the needs of the disease it dictates her behaviour, overcoming her conventional morality just
as the mutation has modified and overcome her flesh.
But it's an uncomfortable synergy and ultimately a tragic one. Rose rejects the possibility
that her mutation and the epidemic are related, a state of denial so deep that she's prepared
to risk her own life rather than face the truth leading to a final deadly experiment
that is akin to suicide.
Though tempting to attribute the decision to cast *** star Marilyn Chambers as some
sort of sly commentary in itself the truth is the choice was a practical one suggested
by Producer Ivan Reitman.
Cronenberg wanted Sissy Spacek having been impressed by her performance in Badlands but
was vetoed. Meanwhile Carrie was released turning her into a genre sensation overnight.
The fact that a poster of Carrie can seen in one scene could in itself be read as a
commentary by Cronenberg.
Watching Rabid today it may well be cheap and dated in look and feel but it's no less
topical now than it was on its release. Its unconventional concerns, Cronenberg's ongoing
fascination with disease as a form of bodily mutation together with its deeply original
imagery ensure that this film still retains it ability to confront and disturb to this
day.