Rabid VHS

This late seventies film was aired on television before the pandemic. I only saw some of it but I couldn't get it out of my head so I ordered the DVD. The film has its moments with Marilyn Chambers (a former porn actress) playing Rose. Chambers did a good job though in her first legitimate role. Too bad, her film career never took off afterwards.Rose gets into a horrific motorcycle accident with her boyfriend, Hart Reade. Her boyfriend survived while she had a skin graft surgery. I don't know how she was infected with a parasite in th armpit which creates a deadly embrace. Some of her victims live while others died.The film is a low budget horror film from Canada. David Cronenberg retirees because he couldn't get financing for his films. Cronenberg is a Canadian film treasure. He has delivered memorable moments. I still have questions about Rose's parasite.

Maybe back in the day this was a revolutionary film for the genre, but nowadays its just your standard zombie movie. Someone get's infected first then they infect someone else and from there It all goes to hell, typical zombie movie stuff. I believe the film drags on for too long and in the end doesn't have much of a payoff. Also it get's very repetitive,Rose(The main character) pretty much seduces or attracts a dude and then spikes them with her armpit needle or whatever it is. This happens like 4 or 5 times and by the third time I was sick of it. The romance here is weak, therefore it makes it hard for me to care about John(I think that's the male leads name) finding Rose. I liked the zombie designs however, and the best parts of the movie were with them. I probably would have enjoyed it more if it was centered around the zombies rather than Rose. Rose is a beautiful woman yes but that can only take her character so far, she is not a very interesting character aside from that, not many of the characters in here are. I really was hoping I would love this film but it just was not for me I guess. On to the next Cronenberg film.

Introductory note: I'm pretty sure there's a legal requirement to refer to the star of this film as "porn star Marilyn Chambers"; there may have been a statute of limitations on mentioning "star of Behind the Green Door and Insatiable", some time after the last VHS copies disappeared from circulation. Ms Chambers acts as well as anyone in this low budget contagion-horror, and has at least three topless scenes. So that's that out of the way.Rose (Chambers) suffers burns in a motorcycle accident. She is rushed to the handily nearby private plastic surgery hospital, the Keloid Clinic (named after lead surgeon Dr Keloid, not because they specialise in reducing unsightly scars). She has skin grafts which are subject to some kind of irradiation, which gives the grafts a stem cell-like ability to adapt to the location to which they're grafted (or something), the key facts being that this is an experimental procedure which carries a risk of "tumours". The unexpected side effect Rose suffers is to grow a little vagina under her left armpit, from which a little penis with a spike emerges, with which she is compelled to drain human blood for nutrition; ordinary food causes her to vomit. The victims suffer amnesia, and within a few hours start to bleed and froth at the mouth and start biting the nearest person, i.e. they become zombies, until they expire altogether a few hours later again. Those who are bitten carry the contagion, and so on.The DVD had the grainy, washed-out quality of cheap film stock transferred onto VHS and then digitised, which adds its own kind of atmosphere. Performances were generally wooden, with Ms Chambers, her boyfriend and her best friend slightly better than the others. Despite the rockingly trashy premise, the film was slow to get going, and until about the half way mark, I wondered if an exploitation film starring a porn actress who attacked her victims with a little spiky penis was somehow only going to offer conceptual pleasures. Escape velocity was eventually achieved, and the latter half of Rabid had both some genuinely creepy and suspenseful scenes, as when one of the hospital employees returns home to find his infant missing and bloodstains in the nursery, and crowd-pleasing set pieces, including a zombie attack on a subway train, and another at a shopping mall after the imposition of martial law, where a Santa gets caught in the crossfire. Also, there's a mild rape-revenge theme (it's an exploitation film thematic bonanza), where one actual attempted rapist in a cow shed (just after Rose discovers that the blood of non-human mammals just won't do) and two creeps in a (porno) cinema and a mall get what's coming to them.Rose's boyfriend drives through Montreal trying to find her, and his car is attacked by a zombie. An army sniper stationed on a garbage truck shoots the frothing assailant off the front of the car, and two men in Hazmat suits remove the body and spray the car windscreen with some sterilising fluid, in what my wife identified as a tribute to Canada's universal health care system.Come for the trash, stay for the technical accomplishment and the lesson in film history.

Out of all of David Cronenberg's film's this one is my most favorite. Although it is one of his earlier film's with a smaller budget, it is a treat for horror fan's. Marilyn Chambers first feature film too. Her character gets a parasitic virus of epic proportions that is transferred to others and rapidly spreads throughout Canada unlike anything ever spread. The people affected turn into ravenous murdering zombie like creatures that make things so much more worse. A gem among horror films that really should be viewed by fans that love films that go bump in the night.

After a motorcycle crash, Rose, played by Marilyn Chambers, riding pillion, is taken to a nearby clinic, which is doing research in plastic surgery. After an operation for a skin graft, she develops a thirst for blood. Blood being her only food. One by one, she feeds off her victims who in turn develops rabies, and goes on to infect others, resulting in a widespread epidemic.There have been some negative reviews about other versions of this film. This is a brand new transfer, and is presented on blu ray for the first time. The colour grading has been redone, and the review on bluray.com criticizes the colours in some scenes. I did not find any major problems with any of the colours in any scenes. There is some grain evident in the transfer particularly at the beginning, but I suspect that this is how it looked when originally released to cinemas, so no problem. Arrow have provided a reversible sleeve, which has the artwork for the original poster. (Which is better than the new commissioned artwork). This version also comes with a dvd copy.Picture Quality is good, with natural flesh tones, from a clean print. The original aspect ratio of this film is 1.85:1. This blu ray transfer is in 1.78:1, which is the equivalent to a 16x9 tv screen, and an almost identical ratio to 1.85:1 so there is almost no picture loss, if any. The sound is in the original mono.This is the best this film is ever going to look, so if you are a fan of David Cronenburg, or just want this film, buy this version.FOOTNOTE: This review is for Arrow's blu ray release, not prism's dvd release, as Amazon has put it under.

I've always thought that David Cronenberg is either hit or miss, thankfully he has had many hits than misses in my opinion. Rabid I feel was a missed opportunity. For the most part the movie works much like the plot of his other and better project SHIVERS where one person gets infected and then spreads their disease and the general public go nuts. Marilyn Chambers ex porn star does a fine job here and looks gorgeous. The story whilst silly, still works and the claustrophobic atmosphere oozes classic Cronenberg. For me though this is a movie that has a beginning, middle but no ending. At best the climax is just unsatisfactory and it seemed like Cronenberg wasn't too sure how to end this one. Rabid is good and there is an underrated performance by Chambers on screen boyfriend Frank Moore. Ivan Reitman who would go on to huge Hollywood sucess produces.

love Cronenberg and Chambers. this movie is wicked to say least. must have it in my collection. thank you black label 101

An early film by Cronenberg. Quite exciting and thrilling. Yet the spread of the so called 'rabid' in the film reminds me of the zombies in Romero's classics (e.g. The Night of the Living Dead, The Dawn of the Dead, etc). Was Cronenberg inspired by Romero?

Film I had on DVD years back wanted it again not the best but classic early cronenburg