I'm so excited! There are three David Cronenberg movies that I've never seen and that I've always wanted to see (well, there WERE until this month): "Videodrome," "Scanners," and "Rabid." Somehow these movies always got pushed to the back burner in favor of other movies (some of which sucked, so I might as well have watched good movies instead). I've been cruising right along catching up on those movies this month, and now it's time to finally watch "Rabid"! Color me excited.
This movie is about a beautiful woman who contracts a strange disease after having plastic surgery. The disease makes her hungry for human blood. Ew. I've known about the plot of this movie for a long time, but it kind of confused me, because I knew that Marilyn Chambers plays the main character, and she's gorgeous, so I never got why she would have plastic surgery until I saw the movie. Makes much more sense now (even though I know people often opt to have plastic surgery even when they don't "need" it, because they're unhappy with their looks).
Cronenberg is kind of in his element here, dishing up body horror, horrifying things happening to people, altering their physical appearance and turning them into monsters. This movie definitely makes me never want to get plastic surgery. Also, I kind of don't want to have sex after watching "Shivers," or have kids after watching "The Brood." They should show his movies as a form of birth control. Come to think of it, this movie makes me never want to have sex either...or ever touch another human being again. Ew, ew, EWWWWW.
As you might have gathered, this movie is pretty disgusting (I mean that as a compliment, of course). The disease here operates like rabies, passed by people's saliva when they bite you, and those who have the disease are goners, because it metabolizes almost immediately, and within hours they start sweating, leaking green pus from their eyes, then foaming at the mouth with greenish foam like they have a mouth full of drain-o. For Rose (Marilyn Chambers' character) since she's patient zero (the first person who was infected) the disease manifests differently on her body, changing her appearance in different and horrifying ways.
I won't spoil it, but I have a skin condition known as Hidradinitis Suppurativa, and it can leave boil-like wounds on my skin, kind of like some of the wounds in this movie. It's easy to see these wounds and scars on my skin and feel kind of like a monster, so this movie resonated with me in a deeper way than it might have done otherwise. Let's just say seeing Rose writhing on the floor saying "I'm disgusting, I'm disgusting!" is altogether too familiar for me. Same, girl, same. Overall, this movie is nasty and disgusting and very well made. It knows it has a low budget, and it works within the confines of that budget perfectly. Cronenberg is really good at that. This movie is easily a new favorite of mine, and I'm glad I finally got to check it out.
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