Rabid

Rabid (1977)

Written and Directed by: David Cronenberg
Starring: Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silver, Howard Ryshpan, Patricia Gage, Susan Roman, Roger Periard

After a young woman is badly injured in a motorcycle accident, she undergoes experimental surgery which somehow causes her to grow a bloodsucking dick in her armpit... no, really. Then she goes around infecting people with some kinda disease, turning them into blood-crazed maniacs along the lines of The Infected in 28 Days Later (which is a much superior film).

So it's like a sexual, cancerous, parasitic mutation brought on by tampering with science and technology. Hey, it's a David Cronenberg movie!

This one is a kind of an interesting speculation on what would happen if there was an outbreak of zombies in Montreal, but the film doesn't ever really become that engaging much beyond 'wow, that would really suck if that happened'.

As far as apocalyptic 'what if' movies go, this one feels pretty realistic. It does have good atmosphere and a few good moments.

The characters just weren't interesting enough for me to care all that much what happened to them. I was marginally interested in where the film would end up, but from a strictly academic stance.

Part of this is due to Marilyn Chambers being not that great an actress. I'm told she was a porn star back in the day, and it's not really all that surprising that she never really went on to do anything terribly significant.

She's not bad per se, she just isn't very good. To be fair, she did have to play the armpit dick chick, which isn't really a great role, but still.

However, it being set in Montreal was pretty cool. New York is one thing, London another, but Montreal is closer to home. I mean, it's right friggin there, and I've been there and all that. Actually, New York is pretty near to where I am too, but it's south of the border so it doesn't seem that close.

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