Rabid

"You can't trust your mother, your best friend, the neighbor next door…One minute they're perfectly normal, the next…RABID!"

1977 1h 31m EN

😐

6.3

MID

★6.3TMDB · 588

HorrorScience Fiction

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

A young woman develops a taste for human blood after experimental plastic surgery, and her victims turn into bloodthirsty zombies, leading into a city-wide epidemic.

“You can't trust your mother, your best friend, the neighbor next door…One minute they're perfectly normal, the next…RABID!”

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Cast

Marilyn Chambers
Rose
Terri Hanauer
Judy Glasberg
Frank Moore
Hart Read
Joe Silver
Murray Cypher
Howard Ryshpan
Dr. Dan Keloid
Patricia Gage
Dr. Roxanne Keloid
Susan Roman
Mindy Kent
Roger Periard
Lloyd Walsh

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: David Cronenberg
Writers: David Cronenberg
Languages: English
Countries: Canada

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $0.5M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

ERA

Did you know

49 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by David Cronenberg, shot by René Verzier. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Jean LaFleur shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

CAST

Did you know

Marilyn Chambers and Terri Hanauer and Frank Moore carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "You can't trust your mother, your best friend, the neighbor next door…One minute they're perfectly normal, the next…RABID!".

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0076590 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

David Cronenberg directs. René Verzier behind the camera. Jean LaFleur cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in Canada. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $0.5M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
249 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Directed by David Cronenberg, shot by René Verzier. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Editor Jean LaFleur shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
5Marilyn Chambers and Terri Hanauer and Frank Moore carry the top of the cast.
6Marketing tagline: "You can't trust your mother, your best friend, the neighbor next door…One minute they're perfectly normal, the next…RABID!".
7IMDB entry: tt0076590 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Classified under 14 themes, including "vampire", "martial law", "montreal, canada", "motorcycle crash".
9Released under 12 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: René Verzier
Editing: Jean LaFleur
Makeup / hair: Joe Blasco
Sound: Joe Grimaldi
Runtime: 91 min · 1h 31m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $530,000
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Rabid (1977)

Also by

David Cronenberg

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Community reviews

What people are saying

John Chard2014-10-16
★ 7/10
Hydrophobic Induced Phallic Destroyer. Rabid is written and directed by David Cronenberg and it stars Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore and Joe Silver. Cinematography is by Rene Verzier and music by Ivan Reitman. When Rose (Chambers) is involved in a horror motorcycle accident, she undertakes experimental surgery in order to save her life. However, she develops a taste for blood and has grown a deadly orifice under her armpit. As the victims stack up and Rose grows ever more insane, the city is put on red alert. David Cronenberg’s second full-length film continues the themes found in his smart debut Shivers from the previous year. Body horror and disease come to the fore but Cronenberg expands it out from the confines of one building, into a whole city! Once again operating with a small budget with great results, the director fills out the narrative with sweaty virus panic, intelligent barbs, addiction concerns and visceral nastiness, with the phallic destroyer under Rose’s arm a frighteningly bonkers creation. True to the director’s career peccadilloes, sex and violence also come under the microscope, while his camera work shows an inventiveness that off-sets the poor effects work. The city is suitably painted as dowdy so as to run concurrent with the diseased narrative, and porn star Chambers gives a very effective performance while others are merely adequate. A simple story and periods of sag and drag stop it being top of the line Cronenberg, but there’s a raw energy to Rabid that is most striking. Watching it now as it heads towards being four decades old, it signals with intent a career being born of a most skilled auteur. 7/10

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