Rabid (1977)

 

Rabid (1977)

 

Before his first “official” feature, David Cronenberg had a large number of preceding Writing and Directorial credits, on TV plus two notable Student Films now considered classics, “Stereo” (1969) & “Crimes of the Future” (1970). That first feature, “Shivers” (1975) was a boldly grotesque parable of the rottenness of the Sexual Revolution, was something the audience had never seen before, though its disturbing themes were first evident in those Student Films. Cronenberg would return to those themes in “Rapid,” and again and again thereafter, thereby virtually inventing the sub-Genre of Body Horror: Tales of our bodies turning against us because of Infection, Parasitism, Mental Disorder, or some other Violation. These ideas not unheard prior (the first “official” SF novel was Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” (1818) wherein you can definitely find Body-Horror in it if you bother to look) but Cronenberg can claim fatherhood of the sub-Genre because he embraced the Grindhouse era’s greater freedom regarding explicitness yet never forgot to infuse his grotesqueries with subversive ideas concerning the corruption of the body, personal identity, and the larger society, being essential one-in-the-same.

 

He gave us stories that were callus and cruel but also insightful about the dark side of human sexuality, he comes close to entirely dismissing Free Will, it’s always treated it as secondary to Biological Imperatives, or as Critic Anders Bergstrom put it, “Cronenberg asks us to grapple with the body as central to our experience of the world.”

 

He has never, ever, told a Horror story that was based in the Occult. He didn’t just throw buckets of blood and T&A around like most Grindhouse Writers/Directors. On the other hand, he did create an number of the most grotesque images in the history of Horror cinema. He was on an exploratory mission into the real Heart of Darkness. “Body Horror” wasn’t coined until 1983 by Critic Philip Brophy and prior to that, in attempt to describe what Cronenberg created and inspired in others, the phrase “Venereal Horror” was sometimes used, which was tacky, but it did communicate a point.

 

“Rabid” was Cronenberg’s second official feature and like “Shivers” it was treated harshly by critics at the time, but was popular audiences, and later earned significant retrospective praise. I will mostly praise it as well, but I must say it’s not a favorite. It was demanded by the studio, Cinépix (now known as Lionsgate), after the surprise success of “Shivers” (returning more than $5 million Internationally on a $180,000 budget) and “Rabid” is, for me, too similar a film. Yes, new characters, new cause-and-effect driving the plot, but essentially, it’s just “Shivers” played out on a larger scale. Cronenberg’s improving craftmanship is obvious, “Rabid” looks a lot better, there’s multiple excellent car crashes (the first film had a lower budget and only one), and the pacing is cleaner, but having first encountered the two films in the proper order I can’t help but conclude these were not only connected by Cronenberg’s dark and then-unique themes, but really saying the exact same thing, and “Shivers” had more to say about it.

 

“Shivers” concerns a Mad Scientist, resident of an exclusive Condo, who deliberately Infects his mistress with a Parasite he’s manufactured which triggers uncontrollable Sexual Compulsions; the Parasite spreads beyond his control and soon the building is the Ground Zero for a Zombie Apocalypse Parody of the Swinger life-style. “Rapid” concerns another Scientist, this one not really Mad, who performs an Experimental Procedure in an Emergency Case which triggers a Mutation in the Patient and she becomes a “Typhoid Mary”; her embrace spreads a Zombie Apocalypse Infection throughout a whole city, with savagery and violence tearing apart the streets.

 

There’s a lot less sex and T&A in this second film, ironic given its lead, Marylin Chambers, was then the world’s most famous Porn Star. This was her Mainstream Cinema debut, and the surprise restraint on the sex and T&A in an Exploitation Film reflects Cronenberg’s narrative discipline. The first film focuses on a Hero trying to understand, then contain, the infection, this one focuses on the Patient Zero, mostly unaware she’s the source, so though she enjoys the emerging feelings of her compulsive behavior but remains largely innocent of malicious intent. As the film progresses, she remains wholly believable in her denial of her role in this worsening Hell, but progressively this denial erodes, and the film’s strongest scene is near the end, when she can’t hide anymore and must face the Horror she has wrought.

 

Unlike the first film, about an SF STD transmitted like most STDs are, this infection is spread by a simple hug. Our Typhoid Mary has developed as proboscis in her armpit that draws blood from, and injects the infection into, the unsuspecting. In the first film, the SF STD spreads in the context of an already promiscuous crowd, which is what you’d might expect from a film starring Chambers, but here the Protagonist, named Rose, isn’t really a wanton, and the Infection’s manipulations of her choices are subtle; you can believe almost anyone of us would be similarly subverted.

 

Before Cronenberg had shifted to film, he studied Medicine, something you can see in most his films, even his most Surreal. “Shivers” had an improbable Mad Scientist (except for the fact that he would remind some of the real-world Wilhelm Reich), but the Monster he created had a darkly realistic feel to it. Here, the Doctor is entirely believable, but Cronenberg was pushing his luck with the Infection, its Mutation is hugely sophisticated, highly evolved at its inception, but the product of a one-off accident: An inadequately tested skin-graft technique. Cronenberg appeared to have recognized the cumbersomeness of his improbabilities and an expository scene regarding that “how” of the Mutation was cut during post-production, seemingly to avoid the audience thinking too much about it.

 

Cronenberg seems to start many of his projects from some weird idea that bubbled out of his subconscious, then tries to impress a narrative logic on it through the mannerisms of SF. During the writing process here, he was far from certain he’d be able to pull it off. He told his Producer, John Dunning, "John, I just woke up this morning and realized this is nuts. Do you know what this movie's about? This woman grows a cock thing in her armpit and sucks people's blood through it. It's ridiculous! I can't do this. It's not going to work"

 

Hostile contemporary Critics rightfully complained about the silliness of the conceit, but they were also mainstream Critics watching every movie, that came out in every Genre, every week. The silliness is ignored by most retrospective Critics who tend to be SF,F&H Genre-focused. I guess SF,F&H has been so ridiculously illogical, for so long, that a filmmaker can get away with pretty much anything with us as long as he can keep the story moving.

 

Here though, I can to be careful about the word “subtle” because this film isn’t; quite deliberately, Rose’s phallic stinger looks like a penis emerging from a vagina, and that was entirely deliberate on Cronenberg’s part. But there is subtly in the demonstration of the infection’s impact on Rose’s behaviors.

 

Cronenberg’s often complicates gender binaries, usually only lightly touching on the role of social conditioning, more focused on the role of biology and mostly through demonstrating the power of biology through the consequences of deviation. Though Free Will is not entirely dismissed in his narrative, Rose’s denialism of what she’s become implies it is not our primary driver, the needs of the body drive our behavior and define our choices and goals. Because of the Mutation Rose has a new body, new drives, and she cannot help but be shaped this. The visualization of the idea, the vagina with a protruding penis, is far sillier than Cronenberg intended, but it did get the point across.

 

Cronenberg, like many Horror Directors, is hugely influenced by Freudian Symbolism, but unlike most, actually read Sigmund Freud, as well as his critics. In the Clinic, one patient is seen reading Ernest Jones’s biography of Freud and, later in his career, Cronenberg made the Critically Acclaimed non-Horror “A Dangerous Method” (2011), had a fictionalized Freud as a central character.

 

But let’s be frank, there’s no subtly all in the demonstration of the effects of the Infection on anyone but Rose. Though the sex and T&A are toned down compared to “Shivers,” the level of the violence remains high.

 

Though I stand by my criticisms, I must also praise, the main reason that Cronenberg’s silly conceit didn’t spark laughter among the actual, intended, audience rests in his artistry. His Horrors are always grounded in believable mundanities; in most of his films there’s a deceptive matter-of-factness in how things are presented before they all go-off-the-rails, then more matter-of-factness after that, in preparation for everything to go off-the-rails again. In this film, the motorcycle crash that sets up the entire plot is part of a complex, but wholly believable scenario.

 

The crash takes place on a rural road and the closest Medical Facility was Keloid Clinic, part of an increasingly popular trend in Plastic Surgery of earning their keep by presenting themselves as Luxury Resorts/Spas. The crash’s remote location Rose’s critical condition from transfer her to a more conventional Hospital, too far away in city of Montreal. This compels the Head Doctor, Dan Keloid, played by Howard Ryshpan, to intervene save her life. But our first introduction to Doctor Dan isn’t him leaning over his Patient, it’s at a Board meeting addressing his new business’ enticing profit potential vs its cost over-runs. His choice to do the Experimental Procedure on Rose is half out of Rose’s needs, severe burns over much of her body, but also half out of pressure to prove his radical methodologies should be the Industry Standard (his grafts are artificial, but also biological, a “morphologically neutral” tissue (so think stem cells) that won’t be rejected by Rose’s body).

 

Most of the character names are symbolic, Rose “blooms” as she becomes more Monstrous, and her first nude scene (there are two, both within the first twenty-minutes) was a display of how effective Keloid’s grafting was, a contrast to her horrific burns we’d seen minutes earlier. As for Keloid, it’s the medical term for a nasty scar tissue.

 

Rose’s first Victim was another Patient, Lloyd Walsh, played by J. Roger Periard, (this is the second nude scene, only partial, she throws her bed sheets off when she awakes panicked from her coma). That the causes and impactions of how this Infection are not immediately recognized are wholly believable. As Lloyd sickens, he is transferred to a Hospital in Montreal which is better resourced, thereby spreading the Plague to a major population center before anyone knows that the Plague exists.

 

After that, Rose is driven by short, intense compulsions, reflecting addiction, and like an addict hides her inappropriate behaviors. She sneaks out of the hospital, does things she doesn’t fully understand, infects another, a farmer, played by Terence G. Ross, who behaves badly towards her, then returns the Clinic, her short absence unnoticed. There’s more accidental Infections in Keloid, but as Rose never sees them as consequences of her actions, and her fear-fed denialism compels her to flee the Clinic, hitchhiking her way to Montreal, infecting at least one other along the way, not knowing the city will be a Hell-scape by the time she arrives.

 

The Victims of the Infection are more obviously sick than Rose: Pale, foaming at the mouth, blindly attacking strangers and biting them. Those bites spread the Infection so the numbers of Sick increase at exponential speed. Brutal attacks occur in shopping malls, operating rooms and subway cars. The film’s tag line puts it nicely, “You can’t trust your mother…your best friend…the neighbor next door…one minute they’re perfectly normal…THE NEXT … RABID”

 

A Government Hack, Dr. Royce Gentry, played by John Gilbert, recommends Martial Law and a shoot-on-sight policy to slow the blindingly fast spread of this Rabies-like disease for which there is no treatment yet. But Christmas is coming, so the city isn’t put into complete lockdown, leading to a continuation of attacks on the street, and the Military gunning down the Infected in public, one of them was a Department Store Santa.

 

It was Writer/Director George Romero who created the Zombie Apocalypse sub-Genre with “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) and Romero’s influence is obvious in both “Shivers” and “Rabid.” This film is closest to, not as well conceived as, but far better executed than, Romero’s “The Crazies” (1973).

 

Several strongly executed scenes demonstrate large-scale social chaos despite the film’s limited budget. Another dark scene features a crazed member of the Infected attacking the hood of a car carrying Dr. Dan’s business partner, Murray Cypher (Joe Silver). The Infected man is shot, Government Employees in Hazmat Suits spray Sterilizing Agents on the windshield, and Cypher turns on the wipers as he drives away.

 

“Shivers” played into the claustrophobic, set almost entirely indoors of one building. Though the apartments were luxurious, Cronenberg shot it to seem confining and the spread of his SF STD became increasing visualized by a crush of bodies. The crush of bodies is evident in this film as well, especially in the subway sequence, but Cronenberg plays more to the distances between people, not claustrophobia, to build suspense. No one is talking to each other enough to understand what’s really going on. Rose in unaware of the nightmare that Montreal has been reduced to even as she rushes towards it. Even in Montreal, she’s safely ensconced in the apartment of a friend, Mindy Kent, played by Susan Roman, watching the nightmare outside mostly unfolds for her on TV for her, though when her compulsions overtake her, she does go out. Most importantly was the physical distance between and her devoted boyfriend Hart Read, played by Frank Moore (Hart is another symbolic name, it’s pronounced “heart” and his love for Rose is sincere). Hart was present in the first scene, the motorcycle crash, but circumstances separated them even before the crisis emerged. They spend most of the rest of the film trying to find each other, but never substantively reconnect, and their last contact is a phone call.

 

That phone call is chilling. Rose’s denialism has collapsed; ashamed and terrified she commits a deranged act of guilt, clinging to her last thread of that denialism, and calls Hart to tell him she’s locked herself in a room with one of those she’s Infected to prove that she was not the cause of the Plague. At first, she’s tender towards Hart while he begs her to run. It’s an achingly drawn-out scene, tension building to hysteria, and her last words are “I’m afraid.” In this scene the violence isn’t shown, it cuts to the weeping Hart as the phone goes dead.

 

There were complaints about Chambers performance by many contemporary Critics. I say that was unfair, I think she was damned good even if unpolished. Cronenberg, who knew who she was but had not seen her Porn work before hiring, praised her work even though her casting was forced on him. Cronenberg had wanted Sissy Spacek for the role, but another Producer, Ivan Reitman, argued otherwise. Cinépix had made almost all it profit from distributing European Soft-Core Porn and Reitman was hyper-conscious of that market. Reitman told Cronenberg, “It would be really great for us if you like Marilyn Chambers for this movie, because her name means something, we can afford her and she wants to do a straight movie.”

 

(The film has an in-joke worth looking for: While walking the streets on Montreal, Rose walks by a poster for the movie Horror Movie “Carrie” (1976) which starred Spacek.)

 

Apparently, the story of the casting debate became well-known, because a few years later, when TIME magazine ran an article praising Cronenberg’s work, but the Author spitefully mentioned that Spacek would’ve been better in the part. I’m going to go against that: No one could claim Chambers was an actress of Spacek’s caliber, but Chambers had a powerful sexual allure that Spacek did not. The in-denial Succubus Rose chooses mostly male Victims, and they surrender easily, there’s even a scene where Rose gives a hug to a sleazy guy in a Porno Theater. She Infects a few wholly innocent, first Victim Lloyd in the Clinic was trying to calm a panicked stranger, but more than a couple who were Predators, her second victim, the farmer, was a wannabe Rapist. Rose is at least half-an-Innocent, her sexual allure is not central to her Character, but primary in the eyes of men.

 

This really should’ve been a break-through film for Chambers, but no one takes a Porn Star seriously. Director Nicholas Ray was impressed with her, but their film together was never realized because of Ray’s own personal demons were crippling his career. She was considered for “Going South” (1978) but walked out during the first meeting with  Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel because they immediately started sexually harassing her (Mary Steenburgen eventually got the part). She was also up for a role in the prestige, A-list, project “Hardcore” (1979) starring opposite Actor George C. Scott, but ironically the Casting Director concluded she was too “wholesome” to be cast as a Porn Star. 

 

Later, Chambers had little good to say about Porn, "My advice to somebody who wants to go into adult films is: absolutely not! It's heart-breaking. It leaves you kind of empty. So have a day job and don't quit it." Still, unable to secure more Mainstream roles, she returned to Porn with great financial success, only to step away from it again because of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. She also spent years struggling with substance abuse. She was sober by the 1990s and was finally start getting Mainstream Film roles (albeit extremely marginal productions). Sadly, apparently, she’d already inflicted severe physical damage on herself during her years of abuse, and died of complications of heart disease in 2009, only a few days before her 57^th birthday.

 

Canadian cinema had always struggled, and Cronenberg’s studio was no exception. Like in England, significant profits were tied to foreign distribution, therefore foreign investment. Canadian productions were, sometimes, granted direct subsidies under the auspices of the Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC, later Telefilm Canada), and that meant tax-payer money. At the time this film was made, Cronenberg was the only Director to turn a profit on CFDC-financed films because of “Shivers” and the commercial release of his Student Film, “Crimes of the Future.”

 

The idea that someone as unapologetically grotesque as Cronenberg was living large on the taxes of more moral and appropriate Citizens offended many, especially Journalist Robert Fulford, whose article about “Shivers” for Saturday Night Magazine (under the pseudonym Marshall Delaney), “You Ought to Know How Bad This Film Is Because You Paid for It,” caused quite a fuss.

 

When the Executive Director of CFDC, Michael Spencer, expressed strong worry, Cronenberg was dismissive, "Only a hundred people read Saturday Night magazine." Spencer replied, "Yes, but it's the wrong hundred people."

 

“Rabid” was made the somewhat bigger, but still low-budget ($530k), and Fulton made it harder to fund. Ultimately the CFDC funded the film through cross-collateralization with another film, “Convoy,” to hide any direct connection (this secured $200k for “Rapid,” the rest of the budget came from other sources). “Convoy” never got made.

 

That apparently triggered a wave of critical repulsion in Canada to Canadian-made Genre film. The hoi polloi became increasingly contemptuous of any filmmaker not aspiring to be Claude Jutra (OK, fine, he was one of the World’s Greatest Directors, but he served the narrowest of audiences and was secretly a Pederast). This was also in the context of the Prime Minister’s wife, Margaret Trudeau, publicly humiliating him because she was a greater wanton than Character Rose in this film, which would eventually destroy the Prime Minister’s political career. Canada was getting more Conservative and Director Cronenberg, allegedly “living large” on back of tax-payers, was evicted, along with his wife and child, from their apartment because the press had convinced his Landlady that “Rabid” was a Porn film.

 

“Rapid” is a good demonstration of how hard it is to sustain a Film Industry almost anywhere in the world except the USA. At the time, English production houses were falling like flies and Japan almost entirely abandoned cinema in favor of TV. And in Canada, domestic market only, “Rabid” was the highest grossing film in history, but that was a measly $1 million dollars.

 

There’s a general rule of thumb, a film must bring in at least two-and-a-half times its initial production costs to be considered truly profitable because distribution costs are generally not publicly known. “Rabid,” a low-budget film that was the Nation’s highest-ever domestic grosser, and couldn’t pull that off at home, though it’s understood that it did earn impressively when the foreign market money was thrown in (sorry, I can’t find the exact numbers).

 

This success would lead to still better-, if still low-, budgets, for Cronenberg, including “The Brood” (1979), Cronenberg’s first real Masterpiece. After “The Brood,” he’d get Hollywood attention. Even before Cronenberg’s first student film, Hollywood was stealing Canadian film’s best and brightest, both in front and behind the camera, but even after Cronenberg became a Hollywood darling, he remained loyal to his nation of birth. Most, maybe all, of his later films were made in the land of his birth regardless of where the story was set. The Canadian film industry thrives now, but only because of Hollywood productions filmed there because it’s cheaper.

 

“Rabid” eventually got a remake from Directorial team Jen and Slyvia Soska (2019), but I haven’t seen it.

 

Trailer:

Rabid (1977) - Official Trailer (HD) (youtube.com)