As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, for #ScarySocial, Deanna Dawn will be hosting David Cronenberg’s Rabid!
If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime. I’ll probably be there and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Great films are loved by all, read Gary’s take on Rabid before starting this one.
What a strange film. I don’t have a whole lot to say about it, save that I enjoyed what I saw.
I accidentally stumbled on to Rabid. I woke up with the tv on late at night to some guy trying to console a nearly nude and upset patient in her bed.
“Wait a minute….” I say, rubbing my eyes and trying to wake up fully. “Okay, this isn’t Lifeforce. What is this?” My hands start looking for the remote, but by the time I’m able to grab it, the guy howls in pain. Blood starts running down his side while in the patients arms.
“What the what? Hell am I watching?” My hands search for the remote.
I bring up the info on the film and sigh with a smile…”Oh. Cronenberg. I should have known.”
I jumped to the In Demand station and watched it from start to finish. I was always under the impression that Scanners was David Cronenberg’s first film, so Rabid was a nice surprise. I also learned that Ivan Reitman was a producer both for this and some of Cronenberg’s earlier works, much like Mel Brooks was for The Fly. My mind is blown. What is with comedy makers turned Horror Producers?
When Rose (Marilyn Chambers) suffers major injuries in a motorcycle accident, a local medical center takes her in and performs some strange new surgery on her. She’s kept for some time, while her boyfriend Hart (Frank Moore) is sent home. It’s during her stay that the madness starts. As she recovers, Rose finds she has a craving for blood, Leave it to Cronenberg to find the strangest way to do it. Rabid is the kind of film that teaches horror fans. Watching it, I was able to see how it was the source for films like James Gunn’s Slither, Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce, George Romero’s The Crazies and Hal Barwood’s Warning Sign. Anyone watching Rabid would get an idea of where Slither could have gotten the stinger from, which is interesting to see.
Those bitten by Rose begin to suffer from an advanced case of rabies, and this spreads like wildfire. It happens to be one of the best elements of the film. The terror in Rabid comes from both Rose as a carrier, who is compelled to find someone to drink from/infect and her victims, who are left foaming and violent. Bart spends the bulk of the film trying to track down Rose and piece together what’s occurring while facing some guilt. Not a terrible thing, given the entire situation and the fact that it was his motorcycle they crashed. As the story progresses, the danger escalates for everyone involved. By the second half of the film, the city is almost under Martial Law as they try to contain the virus. As a result, the pacing for Rabid is even for a film from the 70s. It doesn’t feel like it drags on at all.
From an acting standpoint, everyone’s parts were okay. Chambers’ Rose is a mixture of innocence, quiet sexuality and a little ruthlessness. I particularly liked Joe Silver (Shivers, another early Cronenberg film) as the investor who watches the hospital kind of unravel. Frank Moore (who reminds me a lot of Christopher Walken) has this tortured soul quality to him that I enjoyed.
The effects and makeup work were great. There’s quite a bit of blood and foamy mouths, of course it’s what anyone would expect from Cronenberg. The blood doesn’t look entirely real, but considering that this was about 40 years ago, it seems to hold up okay.
Overall, Rabid is a great late night movie worth catching if you can. At the time of this writing, the film is available on Amazon Prime.
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Once upon a time, there was a pretty young actress named Marilyn Chambers. She had a fresh, wholesome quality about her, and did some bits parts and modeling gigs. One was as the decent young mom holding her pride and joy baby on the box of Ivory Snow, the detergent that claimed it was 99 1/4% pure. But no acting jobs were forthcoming, so Marilyn found herself in a porn flick called BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR, which became a sensation…
… as did young Marilyn, though she longed to be taken as a serious actress in mainstream films.
Around the same time, there was a young Canadian director named David Cronenberg. He was making a name for himself in the horror field with films like CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (1970) and SHIVERS (1975)…
… but though a few critics admired his work, most dismissed him as just another Grindhouse hack. For young…
I recently came to the realization that my destiny is to list and share 666 of my favorite grindhouse and exploitation film trailers. Previously, I’ve shared 12. Here’s 6 more.
1) Liquid Sky— Have you seen Liquid Sky and if the answer is no, why not? Liquid Sky is one of the great underground films of the early 80s, an epic about drugs, aliens, bisexuality, and performance art. Quite simply put, you must see this movie.
2) Blacula — When I first saw this trailer, my first thought was, “Oh, that is sooooo wrong.” But, the movie actually isn’t that bad. William Marshall is wonderfully dignified and haunted as the tragic title character.
3) Bio-Zombie — I haven’t actually seen this movie but I love this energetic trailer (and the Hello Kitty reference, as well).
4) Martin — This trailer for George Romero’s vampire movie features the film’s star, John Amplas, speaking to the audience in character. Martin is one of the unacknowledged great vampire movies. Supposedly, there’s a remake in the works which, needless to say, is not necessary in the least. The original is more than good enough.
5) Near Dark — Speaking of vampire movies, here’s Near Dark. Before Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar for The Hurt Locker, she made her debut with Near Dark. Of the two, Near Dark is the better film.
6) Rabid — This is an early David Cronenberg film and probably one of his first stabs at being a “commercial” filmmaker (I would have to ask R-Lee for sure on this as he’s the resident Cronenberg expert). The late Marilyn Chambers plays a young woman who gets infected with rabies and proceeds to spread the disease throughout Montreal. As you might expect with a Cronenberg film, the Canadian government quickly turns fascist and a lot of Canadians die as a result. The movie’s not totally succesful but the trailer is. As a sidenote: in 2004, Marilyn Chambers Taylor was the vice-presidential candidate of the Personal Choice Party. I cast my first vote ever for her.
Through the Shattered Lens 