Pretty Good

Let's be realistic.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This little film was very well made & on an obvious tiny budget but still had shocks & scares & some cool scenes!!! Rabid has a BEAUTIFUL musical score it's really LOVELY!!! Realistically there was no "great" performances but hey this is just a fun gritty infection Horror Thriller film & nothing more!!! Cool to know that the excellent Ivan reitman was producer on this & this is very well directed by david & the rabid people look cool like i said it's just a low-budget bit of gross fun & nothing more it's not a masterpiece but it is excellent & very rewatchable, I love these 70s & 80s Horror flicks so i enjoyed this lots & would make a cool double feature with Shivers

All of Cronenberg's obsessions (clinics and hospitals, dangerous sex, the body in decay) made it into Rabid, an effective, entertaining, and unsettling horror movie that REALLY seems like a response to the AIDS epidemic, even though it predated that real-world nightmare.Porn star Marilyn Chambers turns out to be an actual actress; it's a shame she didn't get more chances to break into legitimate movies. Frank Moore does a decent job being the poor-man's Christopher Walken, a few years before Cronenberg had enough cash to hire the real Christopher Walken. The supporting players are, for the most part, quality character actors.The special effects are sickening in a way that CGI never is, and they're used selectively, so that they always have an impact.Some may dislike the sedate earth-toned 70s-Quebec atmosphere (which is similar to the vibe of pretty much every Cronenberg movie pre-Dead-Zone), but I love it; it makes this group of movies feel recognizable and special.

"Rabid" is the way that I found myself entering the career of director David Cronenberg. At first, I expected a simple but yet effective "zombie" movie with some interesting argument and nothing more, but what this movie offers is far more than just that.After and accident of a young couple in a motorcycle, a doctor of a near clinic try to save the woman of the couple, but at the same time, he does it with the help of a little experiment that he has been working with some colleagues. The result saves the lady, but with some cost, a deadly cost.What Cronenberg offers in this films is desperation, desolation and loneliness. You will never feel save watching this, because the danger is everywhere and no one is safe. One of the things that I really liked about the movie and is really not a recurrent theme in the zombie cinema is that the infection is growing gradually. You're not just inserted in a apocalyptic world, but you can watch one getting stronger with time, which is a very effective way to build tension through the entire movie. The acting is solid enough with some really good moments, specially for actress Marylin Chambers, who you can see leave everything in this movie. The dialogue is actually very clever and realistic in a situation like this, helping a lot to care about the characters. The relation between sex, life and death is recurrent theme in the movie, and even if very subtle, I found it clever and make a stand for the film to just not be another zombie flick.The make-up team made an incredible job right here, and I would even argue that Deodato take one or two ideas about it. The music is a beautiful mix of emotions between compassion and terror, switching very effective when it is needed.In a nut-shell, "Rabid" is a movie that any horror or zombie fan should watch, and even if you watched a lot of movies in the past, believe, I can assure you that you're not completely prepared for this one.

Being a David Cronenberg fan, I was really looking forward to seeing 'Rabid.' Granted I've left it a bit late, watching it after pretty much all his other films. And perhaps that was the wrong way to do it. Basically, I preferred his other stuff. Although that's not to say that Rabid isn't without its shades of goodness.It's a zombie film. Nothing new there these days, but, in the seventies, the undead were still a rarity. Okay, so the purists will shout how these 'zombies' aren't really zombies, but, like with films such as '28 Days Later' the principal is the same, i.e. you get bitten, you turn into one. Here, a young woman suffers a horrific motorcycle accident and, during the experimental surgery to save her, she contracts a disease (much like rabies) which makes her hungry to bite people (albeit with a weird extra spike protruding from her – you'll have to watch the film to see what I mean by that, as it's a little hard to describe!).Basically, it's a slow burner. Don't expect any 'Dawn of the Dead' type action sequences to move it along. The first half was actually a little too slow for my liking, but I am glad I stuck with it, as the true 'horror' of the situation is cranked up in the second act. You actually get some pretty hard hitting scenes that are quite bleak and nasty if you're prepared to wait for them, as the authorities find the disease pretty hard to contain.All performances are functional. None of the actors really stand out too much. You'll have to remember that it was the seventies when this was made, so 'attractiveness' wasn't high up on the list of requisites for male acting leads. The actress at the centre of it all – if you believe the trivia surrounding the film – was picked due to her good looks over other actresses deemed better at their trade, but lacking in the 'bombshell' qualities.So, if you're looking for a slow-burning blast-from-the-past with a decent amount of gore and creepiness in the latter stages, give this a go. Personally, I preferred Cronenberg's Shivers, Videodrome, Scanners and The Fly, but I didn't regret at least seeing Rabid.