By Nia Edwards-Behi
It was recently reported that David Cronenberg is no fan of self-appointed online film critics who lack the backing of a legitimate powerhouse of say, a newspaper. Well, if he’s right, here’s hoping I’m one of the ‘quite good’ ones, even if I do continue to ‘dilute’ the voices of those real critics by daring to air my thoughts on a film on a website. Given Cronenberg’s recent tendency toward scathing deconstructions of the establishment of fame, in Cosmopolis and Maps to the Stars, he might do better to turn that attention to the establishment of cultural criticism too, rather than casually dismissing swathes of passionate and enthusiastic writers. Regardless: this is a review of one of Cronenberg’s earliest films, Rabid, and back in 1977 he was already demonstrating something of an insightful and brutal eye for satire.
Rose (Marilyn Chambers) and her boyfriend Hart (Frank Moore) are involved in a motorcycle crash in the Canadian countryside. The blaze is spotted by a patient at a cosmetic surgery clinic, and the couple are picked up by the clinic’s ambulance. Hart is relatively unscathed, suffering only from concussion and some broken bones. Rose’s situation is somewhat more desperate, having been trapped under the burning bike. The clinic’s chief, Dr. Dan Keloid (Howard Ryshpan), decides to treat her there and then, and Rose undergoes an experimental skin-grafting procedure. Rose is slow to recover, and Hart is instructed to return home to Montreal and await news. When Rose finally wakes up, it becomes immediately evident that the skin-grafts that seem to have saved her life might not be such a blessing. Rose harbours a retractable appendage in her armpit, and she is compelled to use it to suck the blood of other people, the only thing that will satiate her new-found hunger. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that those who are attacked by Rose become rabid, and if they go on to bite other people – which they do – then they are in turn transformed into out-of-control maniacs. As Montreal falls increasingly into chaos, Rose makes her way back home, and Hart, along with the Keloid Clinic’s businessman Murray Cypher (Joe Silver) try to get to the bottom of what’s going on.
I confess I am less familiar with Cronenberg’s work than I should be, especially his earlier films. I’ve not seen Shivers, which I’m aware has a very similar narrative to Rabid, so I can’t really make much comment on that. I had a vague memory that I’d seen Rabid, several years ago, but if I had it obviously didn’t make that much of an impression on me as, in re-watching the film, I had no memory of any of it. That’s not to say the film is forgettable: I enjoyed it very much, as it bears all the features of a sleazy exploitation pic from the late-70s, while at the same time demonstrating a more subtle talent than is usually evident in such films.
While the filmmaking talent on show is subtle, the at-first obvious and titter-inducing nature of Rose’s growth is also something of a subtle indictment of phallic power (or perhaps that’s just my, shall we say, biased reading of it). On the one hand, Rose’s phallus is unusual: it does not ejaculate, it consumes. Notably, however, the urge to consume that it incites in Rose is uninvited, and unwanted – although she attacks people in order to sustain herself, she does not seem particularly happy to do so, particularly in the latter half of the film. When we first witness Rose attack, it is a clever inversion of what we might expect to happen: she is prone, in a hospital bed, an orderly finding her topless and confused. My first thought was that he might try to molest her, and that she would attack him as a result of that, but no: she takes advantage of him. She is given unconscious power by the appendage, and it is not there only to defend or take revenge. Ultimately, however, while this initial power that Rose gains might seem subversive and an advantage, it is wholly destructive, and, indeed, uncontrollable. That Rose’s own assessment of her new state is negative – “I’m a monster” – speaks volumes. Whether that’s a useful depiction of phallic power is in the eye of the beholder, no doubt, but it’s an interesting one to find in a slightly sleazy film from 1977.
I think it’s a bit impossible to write about Rabid without paying due attention to Marilyn Chambers. The pornographic actress was not Cronenberg’s first choice, but rather the choice of producers wishing to sex-up the film a bit. Her casting certainly works on that level, but it also brings a wonderful sense of subversion and underlying satire to many of the film’s sequences, the best example being Rose’s visit to a porn theatre to prey on whichever unsuspecting sap thinks it’s a good idea to approach her.
I’ve seen the rabid victims in the film referred to as zombies, which doesn’t seem quite accurate, and it’s nice to see that Arrow don’t refer to them as either zombies or vampires. While the film cleverly plays on the vampiric, making Rose’s appetite a blood thirst, Cronenberg’s concerns are here scientific to the extreme. The repeated misrecognition of the infected as suffering from rabies in the film underlines Cronenberg’s preoccupation with the medical and the scientific, and his masterful use of familiar mythology to explore those themes.
Arrow once again deliver a comprehensive package of special features on this release and do sterling work on the Blu-ray transfer. Rabid might not be one of Cronenberg’s finest, but it sure is a bit more subtle than it first seems.
Rabid is available now on UK Blu-Ray from Arrow Video.