Rabid - review

1977 (Canada)

2003 Prism DVD R(2)

Contains spoilers.

Like Shivers which arrived two years earlier, Rabid is another avant-garde science-fiction / horror written and directed by the now infamous David Cronenberg with partial funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, and another to play with body dysfunction and the breakdown of cognitive function. Like Shivers, there are doctors playing god with the human body without understanding possible psychological ramifications, there's a physical pathogen; this time an infection rather than parasite, and like Shivers whilst no victim ever actually dies before becoming the aggressor there's definitely enough loss of self, unquenchable hunger and neck biting for me to call zombie, albeit pseudo alive zombie.

The central idea, much like in Shivers, is on the surface laughably b-movie. Rose (Marilyn Chambers) is seriously injured in a motorbike accident with her boyfriend and is rescued by a nearby cosmetic surgery who decide as well as keeping her alive, it would also be in her best interests if they try an experimental morphogenetic graft to replace her fire damaged skin and organs. Of course this being Cronenberg things don't necessarily pan out as chief surgeon Dr. Dan Keloid (Howard Ryshpan) hopes, and whilst her body does accept the new tissue it doesn't just replicate what was there before but configures itself into an underarm orifice replete with phallic stinger that fills Rose with an irrational hunger for human flesh and blood.

If a beautiful quite often topless young girl with a blood thirsty parasitic phallic oxter (US: axilla) on the prowl wasn't enough for a good old fashioned horror film, Cronenberg embellishes proceedings further by having those she attacks not remember what took place and most notably, and hence the name of the film, having them infected by a virulent rabies virus that makes them want to join in the flesh and blood hunger games too. It's all a rather far-fetched and over engineered set up for what ultimately comes down to a zombie-esque outbreak but like Shivers with its parasitical sex leeches, Cronenberg manages to not just get the viewer to suspend disbelief but fully on board that the whole thing is plausibly terrifying.

Cronenberg is gifted with the remarkable ability to present the world and the ordinary as not only interesting and natural, but transient and hyper-real; like we're only glimpsing a part of a bigger picture and there's so much more between the cracks. Characters always feel like they have real depth and conversations / behaviour always intimates thoughtfully crafted motivation, though some may be alien or incomprehensible. The effect is to imbue the film with a natural esoteric complexity that's both captivating and disturbing, even putting aside angry armpit penises.

It's well documented now that I don't mandate actual physical deadness in my zombies so with that in mind I'm more than happy to label the rabies infected blood thirsty psychopaths that were unfortunately made by running across Rose as she went about her road trip as such. With frothing snarling mouths, insatiable hunger to hurt anyone in proximity and the apparent now total absence of any empathetic, compassioned or rational self that once occupied the body they're pretty nasty and dangerous crazies and undoubtedly an influence on Boyle's deranged cannibal psychopaths which came some twenty five years later. Rose is more vampire than zombie; her parasitical driver wills her to seek blood, and only human blood, to satiate its overwhelming hunger. She's zombie in so much as she seems unable to resist the hunger, but she's still vampire in still being very much her, with her memories, personality and feelings of guilt and regret.

For all that I enjoyed Rabid I still couldn't help feeling that it lost its way somewhat as the narrative wandered from an alien / Species / slasher to an apocalyptic pandemic in the moments of its inception. Both work as dark and disturbing ideas yet I'm not wholly sure both quite mesh together in as coherent and natural way as hoped. Very much of its time, this seventies horror is inventive, well-crafted with many iconic scenes, and an obvious influence on the zombie / infection craze which exploded. Whilst it doesn't quite hold together as well as Shivers it's still a gutsy, bloody not-dead zombie film that's never superficial or insulting despite a central premise that is quite audaciously daft, 6/10.

Steven@WTD.

Shivers (Orgy of the Blood Parasites / They Came from Within) - review

1975 (Canada)

2003 Prism DVD R(2)

Contains spoilers.

If you'd asked me whether this film would have made my zombie blog a couple of years ago I'd emphatically responded with a no. I'd feasted on the diet of rotting flesh supplied in abundance by Romero then maintained as a familiar western trope and was fully invested that dead meant dead. Today? I've come to embrace the notion that deadness is so much more than not having a pulse and being a great home for maggots; that the fundamental attribute of zombie is loss of will, of self, of control. That the concept is fluid and necessarily ambiguous and can be reasonably applied to all manner of people and situations where a new almost external hunger drives the host to behave in a way that's less than who they authentically are.

In 1975 a young Canadian film maker with a penchant for body dysfunction, infection, parasites and the blurring of psychological with physical released his first feature film with partial funding from the Canadian Government. David Cronenberg's Shivers (aka Orgy of the Blood Parasites, aka They Came from Within, aka Frissons) was met with a mixed reception but also announced to the world the arrival of a daring and exciting young film making talent who wasn't afraid to challenge taboos or court the controversial.

Shivers is an exciting film full of avant-garde ideas, striking and disturbing images and real depth, yet the premise on the surface sounds simple and almost laughably b-movie. The brilliant yet disturbed Dr. Emil Hobbes (Fred Doederlin), has had an epiphany or total psychotic break down, depending on how you look at it, and has utilised his years researching parasites to cure mankind of its swing from flesh and instinct to rationality by introducing a cleverly engineered foreign organism into the wild.

The film begins with the brutal and disturbing scene of Dr. Hobbes attacking and overpowering his teenage concubine, stripping her, then slicing her open to pour (Hollywood) acid on her internals before taking his own life. The act seems malicious yet we learn it's the actions of a desperate man who has come to realise the parasite he has let loose actually does it's job too well turning them into sex crazed monsters and he needs to kill it before it spreads. This is cinema though, so of course he's too late.

Despite no corpses pulling themselves from the earth Shivers has all the hall marks of a zombie film. There's ground zero, there's the slow but exponential spread; there's confusion, screaming, violence and in the end total pandemonium and inescapable hopelessness. The parasite, a combination of venereal disease and aphrodisiac, on symbiotic infection consumes the host with an insatiable psychosis to procreate so that it can itself procreate. Those infected lose that which made them who they are, and are now for all intents and purposes mindless zombies driven by forces not of their own will. They retain their memories and knowledge, but that which stops from them acting against increasing physical and moral degeneration has gone. Sexual coercion turns into rape, rape turns into attacks, attacks turn into murder and cannibalism as the new hosts give in to deeper and darker primal desire, free from all conscience and societal consequence. Under Cronenberg's control the journey is dark, disturbing and utterly compelling. Never is it farce or amateurish but always tight, tense and intelligent.

Stylish, sumptuously crafted and always provocative and interesting. Characters have depth, relationships are complicated and dialogue is well crafted. There isn't a central story as such; Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton), the tower block's locum, his work colleague and lover Nurse Forsythe ( Lynn Lowry) and the accompanying ensemble are there to ensure the story is told and things are revealed at the right pace. There's no real heroes or villains and it doesn't matter. The narrative is the degeneration of the people of the tower and it's brilliantly realised. For a first time director with no real insight into how films were made Shivers is full of iconic imagery (the bath scene alone is timeless) and expertly crafted nuance and subtlety. Gritty, sophisticated, compelling and a triumphant début, 8/10.

Steven@WTD.