Editorials
Unsettling and Startlingly Topical: ‘Rabid’ as Prototypical Cronenberg [Maple Syrup Massacre]
Maple Syrup Massacre is a monthly series where Bloody Disgusting dissects the themes, conventions and contributions of new and classic Canadian horror films.
In the last installment of Maple Syrup Massacre, we looked at how David Cronenberg helped to pave the way for genre films in Canada, a baton that was eventually picked up by Vincenzo Natali with Cube in the late 90s. Consider that piece a primer because we’re headed back to the Godfather of Canadian genre to discuss Cronenberg’s follow-up to Shivers, 1977’s Rabid.
In some ways Rabid feels like Cronenberg giving elitists and, more broadly speaking, the Canadian public (whose outrage fueled the notorious debate about Shivers) the finger. Not only is Rabid another gratuitous horror film about a viral contagion, but the lead actor is none other than famed American porn star Marilyn Chambers. If Cronenberg was courting outrage with his feature directorial debut, he was practically begging for controversy with his sophomore effort.
None of this should suggest that Rabid isn’t a great film, though. Of the famed auteur’s early “body horror” works, it tends to get overlooked in favour of heavy hitters like The Brood, Videodrome and The Fly, but Rabid is actually a perfect continuation of the personal and thematic interests that Cronenberg first explored in Shivers.
Online plot summaries are often misleading: reviews tend to fixate on Chambers’ character, Rose, because of the actress’ real life notoriety and because the character instigates the film’s outbreak. The reality, however, is that Rabid is less about a single character and more about the failed public response to the crisis (trigger warning for rampant parallels to our current lived reality).
Early in Rabid, Rose and her boyfriend Hart Read (Frank Moore) are involved in a motorcycle accident just outside of the Keloid private hospital, named after its founder Dr. Dan Keloid (Howard Ryshpan). Hart’s arm is broken, but Rose is critically injured and must undergo an experimental surgery in order to save her life. Shortly thereafter, Rose – in a kind of hungry fugue state – begins to attack and drain blood from strangers using a phallic stinger hidden inside a vaginal slit in her armpit. Her victims become sick with rabies-like symptoms, eventually falling into comas and dying; but not before they attack, bite and infect others. In this way, the illness begins to spread uncontrollably, charted throughout the film via news reports, quarantines, check points and no shortage of public attacks.
Like Shivers, Rabid is innately interested in the physical (and often sexual) nature of the transmission of the virus. In order to quench her bloodlust, Rose is often framed embracing or pulling her victims in close and the physical struggle when she inevitably strikes at them (with her doubly sexual appendage) bears a strong resemblance to coitus. This is classic, even familiar Cronenberg territory: mad scientists, boundary pushing technology/medical procedures and horrifying body modifications that cause death and destruction.
What could be more Canadian than weird sex?
Unlike Shivers, however, Cronenberg is less interested in characters in Rabid than he is about societal breakdown. Whereas Shivers chronicles primarily aggressor/victim encounters, many of which can be read as explicitly sexual, Rabid chronicles the breakdown of society from normal to chaotic, focusing on the ill-preparedness of all levels of government and individuals.
This can be construed as a callback to the mishandling of the October Crisis by the (Pierre Elliot) Trudeau government at the turn of the decade, which began when members of an extremist political group known as the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped James Cross, the British trade commissioner, as well as Minister of Immigration and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte. Laporte was eventually killed and Prime Minister Trudeau ultimately invoked the War Measures act, resulting in the arrest and detention of 450 citizens without charge. It’s arguably one of the darkest chapters in Canadian political history.
While it is tempting to read Chambers’ Rose as a cipher for the crisis itself (or even an American threat to Canadian society), the reality is that Rose, despite being patient zero, is first and foremost also a victim herself. Unlike in the 2019 Rabid remake, 1977 Rose is an unwilling science experiment gone wrong. She did not consent to the surgery, which was okay’d by her boyfriend and performed on her unconscious body by Dr. Keloid and his team.
Even when Rose is attacking and infecting others throughout the film, in a sense her body is acting of its own accord. This plot point sets up the entire harrowing climax as Rose inadvertently dies by suicide in a misguided effort to prove to Hart that she is not responsible for the spread of the virus by trapping herself in her apartment with a man she has recently attacked. In this moment, as Hart pleads with Rose to run away before she is consumed, Cronenberg briefly hints that he actually cares about his human characters and their micro-level drama, but in reality it is the final scene that confirms his grim, nihilistic thesis. Rose’s corpse has been deposited in a back alley and picked at by a stray dog, awaiting pick-up by hazmat-suited garbage men who proceed to throw her body away like trash.
In this way, Rose embodies the classic dualism of Cronenberg’s early female characters: as William Beard outlines in his chapter on the film in The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg, Rose is both a fantasy object of desire and a sympathetic victim of men and institutions. This is partially in keeping with the gender characteristics discussed in the first entry in this series on Backcountry, where Canadian female characters have greater agency than their male counterparts. This is also evident in the character of Hart, who adheres closely to the characteristics of Canadian men: ineffectual and unable to improve the situation, despite his best efforts.
In spite of recent real life developments that have robbed the film of its escapist elements, Rabid remains both emblematic of Canadian cinema, as well as a prototypical Cronenberg film. In 1977 the genre auteur was still refining his filmmaking craft and his storytelling capacity en route to more polished productions, but the themes and character archetypes explored here (and Shivers) would dominate his later works such as The Brood, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, and The Fly.
Looking back, Rabid is a little messy in parts, but it’s a key stepping stone in Cronenberg’s evolution and an essential entry that helped to establish a genre film industry in Canada.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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