RABID (2019)
Label: Scream Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 107 Minutes
Audio: English DTS_HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Jen Soska & Sylvia Soska
Cast: Laura Vandervoort, Stephen Huszar, Greg Bryk
In the Soska Sisters's re-imagining of David Cronenberg's Rabid (2019) we have a quiet young fashion designer named Rose (Laura Vandervoort, Jigsaw) who is horribly injured after an accident at the start of the film. She wakes up in the hospital days with
disfiguring injuries to her face and chest, her jaw so badly broken that it has to be wired shut to heal. She is callously dealt with by a hospital doctor (Stephen McHattie, Pontypool) and then sent home with her best friend, fashion model Chelsea (Hanneke Talbot, Ready Or Not) to convalesce, but with no realistic way to pay for any future plastic surgeries to repair her injuries.
While recovering Rose comes across a clinic run by Dr. William Burroughs (Ted Atherton, The Expanse), a surgeon obsessed with tranashumanism, who after having a consultation with her offers to perform an experimental stem-cell surgery free of cost. With little other options she accepts the offer, the ensuing surgery scene pays homage to Cronerberg's Dead Ringers (1988) with the surgeons wearing creepy crimson surgical gowns. The surgery is successful beyond all expectations, not only are her scars gone, but she is seemingly more beautiful than before, looking more like the fashion models she works with than the meek girl we were introduced to at the start of the film.
In another nod to Cronenberg's filmography, straight out of Shivers (1975), Rose wanders the facility post-recovery and ends up at a below ground swimming pool, meeting a handsome stranger,(Greg Bryk, Channel Zero: The Dream Door), making out with him before bite him during a deep kiss, she gets frightened and flees the scene. After several weeks of recovery Rose is released from the clinic, returning home with Chelsea where she begins to notice some unusual changes in her own behaviors. It's established early on that she is a vegetarian but she now craves blood, and she feels more confident in her sexuality, becoming more aggressive in her pursuit of companionship.
As in the original film we come to discover that the experimental surgery has somehow transformed Rose into a rabies-carrying blood drinker, not a vampire in the traditional Gothic sense, but transformative just the same, her mouth develops a new set of teeth and there's a a stinger under her tongue. Fans of the original will be pleased and a phallic blood-draining organ that hides in her armpit is still here. The attacks seem to be out of her control. She seems unaware of her new physiology and the harm that it inflicts on others, waking up the next day with traces of blood but unable to recall what has transpired the night before, or the fact that her victims are turning into rabid blood-thirsty maniacs.
The film definitely follows the blueprint of Cronenberg's original film for a large swaths, the biggest change would that Rose, as a character is more developed. The fashion industry setting gives the film plenty of social commentary ammo, and I love Mackenzie Gray (Grave Encounters) as Rose's pompous fashion designer boss Gunter, over the top in the best sort fo way. I also like the nods to other Cronerberg films, but that's not to say I loved everything about it.
Something I missed was the larger scope of the original, in that film you felt the viral-infection spread throughout the city in a more visceral way, it felt a bit like Romero's The Crazies (1973) when government agents in white contamination suits show up and declare martial law shooting civilians to stop the spread of the rabies virus. Here it's a bit smaller-scale, with an ending that really goes it's own way with more focus on transhumanism, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.
The gore is solid, with lots of great bits of rabies carnage with people biting and spreading the disease, and the body-horror of her physical changes is pretty great. I also love that they stay true to the original with an armpit appendage which reveals itself from a tiny vaginal opening in her armpit, looking a lot more phallic than the original.
Audio/Video: Rabid (2019) arrives on Blu-ray from Scream Factory in 1080p HD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. The digital shot film is crisp with pleasing depth and clarity throughout, colors are vivid and well-saturated. Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA winch handles everything quite nicely, dialogue is crisp and cleanly delivered, and the tension-filled score from Claude Foisy (Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead) sounds good in the mix, optional English subtitles are provided.
Extras on the release include an audio commentary with directors Jen & Sylvia Soska, it's easily the best extra on the disc as the siblings candidly discuss making the film, their inspirations and anecdotes from the making of. We also get a 16-min behind-the-scenes featurette with the directors, which is unfortunately semi-ruined by some awful audio-recording issues that render a lot of incomprehensible. There's also a very brief interview with star Laura Vandervoot, plus a 2-min trailer for the film.
The single-disc release comes housed in a standard keepcase with a wrap featuring the original movie poster artwork, the reverse side featuring a Dead Ringers inspired image from the film. The first print run of this release also includes a slipcover with the same artwork, and the disc has the same artwork as well.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary With Directors & Writers Jen & Sylvia Soska
- Behind The Scenes With Jen & Sylvia Soska (16 min)
- Interview With Actress Laura Vandervoot (4 min)
- Trailer (2 min)
The Soska Sisters remake of David Cronenberg's Rabid (2019) absolutely delivers the gore and body-horror you're looking for, managing to improve the story in some ways but falling short in others, when compared to the original film, but even that wasn't perfection, but on it's own merits I found it interesting and quite entertaining, with just the right amount of social commentary but not enough to bog the film down.
