Rabid

A cult horror by cult director David Cronenberg starring the late porn star Marilyn Chambers in an impressive and convincing crossover role, and a viral epidemic that transforms downtown Montreal into a no-go zone – now here’s a movie to sink your… armpit into!

During an outing on their motorbike, couple Rose (Marilyn Chambers) and Hart (Frank Moore) get involved in a road accident that leaves Rose badly burned and comatose. The injured woman is carried into an ambulance and driven to a nearby clinic, in which Dr. Keloid (get the joke?) operates on the patient and experiments with a revolutionary skin-graft technique to treat her wounds. At first, the operation seems successful and Rose soon is on the road to recovery. Of course, this being a Cronenberg film something is bound to go horribly wrong and it does when Rose discovers that her armpit has morphed into a vagina-like orifice out of which protrudes a deadly stinger with which she soon attacks other people. Once stung, she drains their blood and infects them. One of the victims is Dr. Keloid (Howard Rsyhpan), the very surgeon who, ironically, saved her life. But far from killing them, the victims are transformed into blood-thirsty and rabid beings that can’t wait to feast on others.
As boyfriend Hart desperately tries to reach Rose who aimlessly wanders about Montreal, he soon realises that half of the city seems in lockdown with police and army controlling the infected zones. Worse, he comes to learn that it is Rose who is the carrier of this new plague. As the outbreak spreads and turns the wintery city into chaos and living hell, a race against time begins to get the disease under control.

Rabid brilliantly captures the increasing terror and feeling of claustrophobia as the disease begins to spread. The scenes in which garbage collectors pick up the dead and police and soldiers shoot everyone who seems infected with the virus are truly harrowing. Random depictions of horror, for example when a rabid woman suddenly attacks a passenger on the subway, or a shootout in a shopping mall accidentally leaves a Santa Claus performer dead, make the scenario frighteningly real.

Cronenberg’s little masterpiece is released in Dual Edition with the following BONUS:

• New High Definition Digital Transfer
* High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of the feature
* Original mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
* Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
* Audio Commentary with writer-director David Cronenberg
* Audio Commentary with William Beard, author of The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg
* Archive interview with David Cronenberg
* Brand new interview with executive producer Ivan Reitman
* Brand new interview with co-producer Don Carmody
* Make-up Memories: Joe Blasco Remembers Rabid – A short featurette in which Blasco recalls how the film’s various gruesome effects were achieved
* Raw, Rough and Rabid: The Lacerating Legacy of Cinépix – Featurette looking back at the early years of the celebrated Canadian production company, including interviews with author Kier-La Janisse and special makeup artist Joe Blasco
* The Directors: David Cronenberg – A 1999 documentary on the filmmaker, containing interviews with Cronenberg, Marilyn Chambers, Deborah Harry, Michael Ironside, Peter Weller and others
* Original Theatrical Trailer
* Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Nat Marsh
* Collector’s Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Kier-La Janisse, reprinted excerpts of Cronenberg on Cronenberg and more, illustrated with original archive stills and posters.