Rabid (1977)

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HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2021

Writer/Director: David Cronenberg

Stars: Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silver, Howard Ryshpan, Patricia Gage, Susan Roman



A medical experiment causes a young woman (Marilyn Chambers) to grow a new organ that allows her to penetrate her victims and drink the blood that she now craves, inadvertently spreading a virulent strain of rabies.
 


This early Canadian exploitation film from writer/director David Cronenberg displays his early interest in body horror before body horror was cool. 



Although the murdering rabies zombies provide plenty of thrills, the woman at the center of the mayhem remains a sympathetic figure, unable or unwilling to understand her place in this tragedy. 



Rather than building to a climactic orgy of violence, as we might expect from a movie like this, Cronenberg gives us a quiet, sad ending that is far more affecting and bleak.


























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