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Film (1976). Cinepix/Dibar Syndicate/Canadian Film Development Corp. Written and directed by David Cronenberg. Cast includes Marilyn Chambers, Patricia Gage, Susan Roman, Howard Ryshpan and Joe Silver. 91 minutes. Colour.
In this Canadian film from David Cronenberg an experimental skin graft on an accident victim (hardcore porn star Marilyn Chambers) turns her into the carrier of a rabies-like disease which induces homicidal mania in its victims; the disease is spread by means of a phallic, organic syringe which emerges from labia in her armpit and is used to satisfy her new, uncontrollable blood lust. Montreal is soon in the throes of apocalypse, and martial law is established; citizens who cannot produce proof of inoculation are shot by troops and their bodies dumped into garbage trucks. Structured much like The Parasite Murders (1974; vt They Came from Within; vt Shivers), this is more smoothly directed but perhaps less intense, and by Cronenberg's standards is a conventional exploitation picture – though from anybody else this medical/Freudian Horror movie, with its gender-bending, penis-wielding killer woman, would have seemed bizarre indeed. [PN/JB]
see also: Cinema; Monster Movies; Sex.
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Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 15:06 pm on 25 April 2024.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/rabid>