Rabid

She uses Lotrimin as deodorant. If this movie was made today there'd be a new fetish for armpits. Actually, I bet there is a fetish for armpits. I'm going to do exactly no detective work on this one.

Sorry my 70s hair isn't coiffed enough to be your hero. It's really ballsy ending a film by throwing your lead actress in the back of a garbage truck. Something something career metaphor. Chambers actually doesn't suck (ho ho ho) in this!

It was fairly obvious to me that Cronenberg plus zombies would equal undiluted awesomeness, and so it did. I really don't get why people aren't more fond of this early effort from the master of body horror. Loved it.

Cronenberg adds his own sexual-body-horror Canadian flare to the annals of "infected" movies, the sister/sub-genre of "zombie" movies, by making a vampire like armpit-anus/vagina/penis-monster that causes super-not-rabies the way probably only Cronenberg could.

Cronenberg shows a more capable touch with this compared to Shivers, even if the overall film isn't quite as interesting. It does benefit from having extra Joe Silver, however, and the cast as a whole has some charm. There are plenty of nasty little moments to enjoy, a bit of sleaze, and a nice undercurrent of humour below the horror. Worth seeing.

Some resemblance to a zombie flick, but since it's Cronenberg, the Freudian subtext is overt (Patient Zero is played by a porn star & she transmits the disease in ways that parallel sex) which gives non-horror mainstream critics the kind of symbolism (vaginas & penises) they enjoy overstating the significance of. But the non-pretentious can enjoy the 70's horror vibe, the early illustration of society under a pandemic & despite some obviously untrained actors none of this feels like a B-movie.

Rough and tumble zombie movie compensates for its lack of spit and polish by its brisk pacing and at times black and bleak sense of humour (the mall Santa Claus scene is sort of amazing!) There's a buried critique here of the vanity inherent in plastic surgery, though Cronenberg isn't intent on pausing for any intellectual pretensions; performers are variable though appropriate to the material, with Chambers very good as "Patient Zero".

Excellent and bloody early Cronenberg feature that is essentially a vampire/zombie film. Adult actress Marilyn Chambers is surprisingly good in the lead role.

One of Cronenberg's finer efforts. Profoundly strange movie about experimental technology going wrong in a seriously original way

Macabre Month of Horror review: https://youtu.be/5p_1b6uZPjE A unique spin on the zombie and pandemic sub-genres. The film is rough around the edges at times, has a couple of plot holes, and some awkward performances but what Rabid does right, it does exceedingly well. There is a shift 30 minutes into the film that sees it widening scope and becoming far greater than the sum of its parts. I'll be rewatching this one for sure.

Top badass moment? A police officer opening fire in a crowded shopping centre (with an automatic weapon), killing Father Christmas by accident… and then apparently misidentifying him as Christ. However, the real badass thing is that he actually manages to kill his target (and Santa), but miss everyone else. And a shout out goes to Santa’s little helper, who bravely rescues a child from St. Nick's knee (well it was the 70’s), despite the hail of bullets. No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.

She's got a vagina in her armpit. This vagina stabs people with a penis-like object inside it. This penis-like object turns people into zombies when it stabs them... wow

Conceptually, the movie is pretty dated (spread of disease that turns victims into murderous monsters has been done to death in recent years). Back in 1977 it was novel, I'm sure. Execution wise, the movie suffers from a lot of tedious shots that either linger too long or are all together unnecessary. Frank Moore is bland, boring and unneeded. And I wanted to see more details about Rose's odd transformation. I appreciate Cronenberg's unique visions, but Rabid is not one of his better films.

Cronenberg's sophomore movie feels like a slightly lesser version of his debut; similar themes of sex+death+the collapse of polite Canadian society, but less coherent; a series of set pieces loosely connected by sometimes rather weak scenes. But you have to admire Cronenberg's commitment to the story, it never gets shlocky, there's some great camera and gore work, and Chambers does a fine job.

Adds nothing to the infected/zombie genre, making it a slog to get through. It also doesn't help that the effects downright suck, and a lot of the acting is woeful, though Chambers is really good horror actress and elevates this film just a little bit.

I like this one quite a bit. Not particularly deep, but y'know, everyone comes to this to see some cool early Cronenberg body horror and all that that entails and it delivers. I mean, Marilyn Chambers grows a vagina in her armpit from which sprouts a phallic, disease-spreading stinger.

Similar theme to Shivers but Cberg is starting to hit his technical stride in this one. Adventurous camera work, cohesive dialogue as well as your traditional fucked up plot line. That's one thing I'm enjoying about turning on a Cberg film, you know despite the tame, placid beginning something is going to crack and there will be a half naked arm-pit phallus wielding blonde, cluelessly patient zero-ing an epidemic in no time.

It's inferior to Shivers in its depiction of people-hooking-up-and-and-dying, but still good: it feels tragic and scary, and presents another metaphor of AIDS -- a christian one, of course, given that the woman is the one that has a vagina-penis in her armpit, gets laid with everyone just to drink their blood and is the source of the plague that devastated Montreal. The finale -- her body is dumped in a garbage truck -- is the most dramatic statement of Cronenberg about the crisis of human body.

Cronenberg is still getting his legs here, but it shows great things to come.

Cronenberg follows They Came from Within with more of the same: the same venereal-disease plot development, the same nauseating special effects by Joe Blasco, the same plasticky color that makes an actor's skin look like that of a rubber doll, and the same scattered satirical touches. The movie is angled toward making you ill at ease whenever Chambers puts her arm around anybody, and it conveys an urgent message about what you get if you mess around with dirty girls.

Weak, especially since it feels like a rehash of Shivers. But I like the part-vampire/part-zombie movie thing it's got going. Marilyn Chambers cruising for men to murder along the streets and malls was totally ripped for Under the Skin too.

Some fun and grody stuff in there, with a throughline of aimless but obviously tongue-in-cheek psychosexual symbolism (a close-up on a Freud book cover, Dr. Cypher, etc.); the weak point is the lack of any discernible character for the antiheroine, not helped by pornographic actress Marilyn Chambers' frankly rather terrible performance. More of a curiosity in Cronenberg's catalogue than anything else, but fans of accidental prescience will get a kick out the vaccine pass scenes.

Aside from some terrible acting, it's quite a decent movie. It's a slightly different take on the zombie genre and it works. The film also has plenty of gore so Cronenberg fans will not be disappointed.

Much, much better than Shivers.

David Cronenberg #2

Society is to blame.

A less interesting premiss than Shivers, but better in terms of pacing, acting and visuals.

Some great ideas and one or two good scenes amidst bad acting and dullness. I like the director but this just didn't work for me.

A pornstar develops some sort off bloodsucking anus-penis in her armpit. The fact that Cronenberg can make a decent movie devoid of pure camp given this premise is a highly respectable feat.

shot well, but it's one of cronenberg's most straightforward stories, so it's not as satisfying as, say, The Brood

In the extras DC says Chambers was somewhat 'tougher' than was ideal for the role. I thought she was good he's right and It'd have worked better with a slightly more vulnerable lead.

The plot is hilarious: a woman ends up with an anus and a phallic stinger in her armpit after plastic surgery. With this hidden weapon she wreaks zombie havoc. Unfortunately the film itself is duller than theplot suggests. Plus Marilyn Chambers is much more interesting when she's nekkid.

Pretty watchable, although you're bound to notice that, plotwise, this could have been a very underwhelming zombie cheapie. The talent is on set (and not even particularly evident in-frame). So, if you just love seeing armpit probosci, rabid zombie attacks, and moderate gore with that signature Cronenberg aesthetic, that's about as far as this'll take you.

It is so long since I saw these early Cronenbergs (SHIVERS, THE BROOD, RABID, SCANNERS) that I can't really be too confident of the scores. More specifically: another viewing could conceivably lead me to give them higher scores relative to some of Cronenberg's more recent dramas. My memory of this one is that it was a bit less interesting than the others.

Par for the course for early cronenberg. Filled with body horror and a socio-political punch(October crisis[martial law and all that etc]). Captures the offbeat sleaziness of 70's Canada. Frank Moore gives a fucked up Dennis Hopper esque performance but Marilyn Chambers steals the show. Sets the stage for later flicks like Under the Skin. The human body is nightmare

Viruses, vaccination lines, vaccination passports: 2021 is quite a time to be watching this decent low-budget body horror

Surprisingly good. Kept me guessing where it would go. It's much smarter than it seems at first

Rabid, or Attack of the Killer Stoma. The zombie epidemic genre is pretty played out by this point, but Rabid is an admirable entry, even before considering it's age.

64.000

In Rabid's world, technological/medical advancement brings forth a rapidly escalating class conflict, where the worse off are shot like rabid dogs. Many of David Cronenberg's trademark elements are present but in a rough form, and the movie is uneven and the ideas underdeveloped.

Not a bad entertainment and interesting zombie-like disease with a bit of vampirism, but too repetitive and not offering anything really new. I would never think that "Free hugs" could be that dangerous.

Been awhile

DVD Versátil Zumbis no Cinema Volume 2

Good horror.

Gratuitous & unnecessary. I mean, this could have been actually good. A zombie film before they became so widespread. A "patient zero" who doesn't know they are. A city that takes the threat so seriously they start shooting on sight. But nooo....the makers had to put blood, gore, and revulsion in at every turn to make it no better than a slasher flick. Unrealized potential, thy name is Rabid.

okay movie

Cronenberg's second commercial feature is probably the least appreciated of his early horror films. It's a far more ambitious film than "Shivers" both in terms of it's scale and in terms of the number of themes it tackles. It's perhaps a little too ambitious in the sense that many of it's parts never really mesh. The body horror stuff involving Chambers is really well done and the city wide-chaos and martial law is well done. but it all seems to exist in separate films.

Early Cronenberg! Yeah! "Rabid" has all the basics elements of his work: sex, blood and chaos.

I honestly expected more. Obviously there are budget restrictions involved and it's an early work, but the story could have been so much more compelling, the characters and dialogue could have been much more well-written, and the pacing was so off it felt like the movie was just wax and repeat over and over. Great visuals with the actual disease and some amazing tense scenes like the initial Rose waking up and the baby scene are all this has to offer, a shame given Cronenberg's talents.

I always knew world zombiefication would start in Quebec.

From a director known for his unrestrained writing and controversy comes a very inconsequential zombie film that a Cronenberg fan might want to believe is a little more clever. It's not though. That was Shivers, which came out before this. Rabid lacks both Cronenberg's intelligence (the science of the horror isn't even attempted an explanation) and his humanity (Chambers's personality is extremely inconsistent and unreadable, and Moore doesn't get one at all). Completely without any risk.

Competently disturbing little piece of predictive programming.

watchable