CFDC, 1977

starring: Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silver and Howard Ryshpan
written and directed by: David Cronenberg

the plot: Following a motorcycle accident, Rose (Chambers) and Hart (Moore) are taken to the nearby Keloid Clinic, a state-of-the-art cosmetic surgery facility run by Dr. Dan Keloid (Ryshpan). Hart has suffered only minor injuries; however, Rose has extensive burns all over her body, and when Keloid uses an experimental skin graft technique on her, it sends her into a coma. She awakens dizzy and disoriented, with strange open wounds on her arms. As her condition worsens, she finds the wounds hide sharp, fleshy projectiles, which she uses to draw blood from unwilling victims. As Rose feeds on the patients in the clinic, she unwittingly turns them all into rabid bloodsuckers. The contagion begins to spread throughout Canada, and it’s up to Hart and Keloid’s business partner Murray Cypher (Silver) to find Rose and stop her.

why it’s good: “Rabid,” Cronenberg’s follow-up to the 1975 chiller “Shivers,” further solidified the Canadian director’s obsession with mutated horrors exploding from within the human body. It’s fitting, then, that the role of the almost-sexual vampire Rose was filled by Marilyn Chambers, who became famous (and infamous) for her role in the ground-breaking porn film “Behind the Green Door” in 1971. Though she’s in a coma for the first 20 minutes of the film, Chambers does a fairly decent job as a hapless victim/predator who can’t control her bloodlust. Cronenberg also does a lot with a little in “Rabid”—the film was made on a shoestring, but by the end, with the contagion spreading and Hart and Murray closing in on Rose, the whole story feels positively epic. Of course, there are some missteps. Cronenberg doesn’t really try to explain Rose’s condition, or, for that matter, the bizarre tendrils that shoot out of her arms and into the necks of her victims.

why you should own it: Ventura’s special edition DVD of “Rabid” features audio commentary by Cronenberg, as well as an interview with the legendarily depraved director.