Sam Panico The film starts with Rose and her boyfriend Hart getting into an accident in the remote countryside. With no other option, they are sent to the Keloid Clinic for Plastic Surgery, with Hart suffering only a broken hand, separated shoulder and a concussion. Rose, however, is barely alive, needing several operations and skin grafts from being burned. Dr. Dan Keloid decides to try something new: he uses "morphogenetically neutral grafts" to heal her damaged tissue, hoping that it will heal on its own. A month later, Hart is ready to go home, but she remains in a coma.Sometime later - time isn't really of the essence in this nightmare world - Rose awakens screaming. When Lloyd, another patient in the clinic, comes to help her, she somehow cuts him. He doesn't remember how it happened, but his blood no longer clots and he can no longer feel pain. And Rose? Well, now she has a wound in her armpit that looks sexual - male and female at the same time. Shades of God Told Me To?Now, Rose can only subsist on human blood, which she discovers after cow's blood causes her to puke. A farmer watches and tries to rape her, but she is the predator now, soon devouring him and turning him into a zombie-like monster.All hell soon breaks loose - Lloyd attacks a taxi driver after escaping from the clinic, killing them both. Dr. Keloid attacks everyone within his own clinic. Rose tries to get Hart to save her, but escapes on her own, infecting people all along the way.Soon, Quebec is a nightmare city, with maniacs using jackhammers to tear people from cars, Santa Claus getting shot and a shoot to kill martial law policy being enacted on anyone showing signs of the virus.Hart tries to reason with Rose - she is the cause of all of this and needs to be stopped. Of course, things can't work out well. The world of Soylent Green has become near truth - there are so many dead people, garbage trucks are the only solution.Cronenberg wanted to cast Sissy Spacek in the lead, but her accent didn't work for the film's producers. He heard from Ivan Reitman, the executive producer, that adult film star Marilyn Chambers was looking for a mainstream role. Her being in the film would help sell it and she put in plenty of work, so Cronenberg was happy with the results. In fact, he had never seen the movie that made her famous, Behind the Green Door.Chambers was quite literally a pure Ivory Soap girl - appearing on a box of that cleaning product as a young mother with the tag "99 & 44/100% pure." Her appearing in the Mitchell Brothers' film - released at the height of post-Deep Throat porn chic, when adult films entered mainsteam consciousness - was a sensation. It didn't hurt that she was also the first white women in a major adult film to have a scene with a black man, Johnnie Keyes.Chambers was in the midst of trying a singing career - her song "Benihana" can be heard in this film - and she was married to Chuck Traynor, ex-husband of Linda Lovelace. You could write a novel about the mania of that dude.That said - for being a sex queen, Chambers comes off as cold in this film. That's probably Cronenberg's goal, to subvert notions. Even his heroes are no heroes. No one can stop what is set in motion and everyone is ineffectual. Such is the Cronenberg universe.One thing I've always wondered - why did they spoil the ending of this film in the original poster?

gwnightscream David Cronenberg's 1977 sci-fi/horror film stars Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore and Joe Silver. This begins with woman, Rose (Chambers) riding a motorcycle with her boyfriend, Hart (Moore). They get into an accident and Rose goes into a coma, but needs immediate surgery. A month later, she awakens with a lethal appendage craving blood. When she starts feeding on strangers, an infectious, epidemic spreads. The late, Silver plays Hart's friend, Murray. This isn't bad, the late, Chambers was good in this and there's gruesome make-up effects. I'd give this a try.

bowmanblue 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.

Uriah43 "Rose" (Marilyn Chambers) and her boyfriend, "Hart Read" (Frank Moore) are riding around on a motorcycle when they crash in a vacant field in the country. Fortunately for them, there is a cosmetic surgery clinic nearby which takes them in. Hart suffers a few broken bones and is taken from the clinic to another hospital about 3 hours away. Rose, on the other hand, is in much more serious condition and the decision is made to perform emergency surgery at the clinic. Since she has suffered severe burns and abrasions the doctor, "Dr. Dan Keloid" decides to use an experimental treatment to facilitate her recovery. This treatment turns Rose into a vampiric carrier of a disease which transfers from her to her victims when she drinks their blood. Unlike Rose, however, her victims display symptoms similar to rabies but with a much shorter incubation period. Soon the virus spreads to Montreal and drastic measures take effect. Anyway, while there are some very good films made recently that are better than this, it should be noted that this film was made over 35 years ago and didn't have the computer graphics or special effects that we now enjoy today. Even so, the acting was sufficient and the director (David Cronenberg) managed to show as much of Marilyn Chambers as was probably permissible during this time. I have no complaints about that. All and all then, this wasn't a bad film and I give it an average rating.