Eviscerating Middle Class Comfort: David Cronenberg's Rabid and the City of Montreal

by Nick Thomson © 2024

N.B. The following is an updated version of an essay that I wrote in April 2005, titled “Tearing Apart Stuffy, Middle Class Comfort: David Cronenberg's Rabid and the City of Montreal”, for a third year course called 'Canadian & Québecois Cinema', during my degree in Film & Television Studies at the University of East Anglia.

Do also note that the following contains SPOILERS for the films discussed.

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David Cronenberg's second full-length feature film Rabid (1976) became a conspicuous financial success, emerging “unexpectedly from a country at best in the twilight zone of film-consciousness”ⁱ focusing on a “disease-driven apocalyptic revolution”ⁱⁱ set in the city of Montreal, in the Canadian province of Québec. The film centres on Rose (Marilyn Chambers), who suffers severe injuries after being involved in a motorcycle crash on a lonely country road with her boyfriend Hart (Frank Moore). She is whisked away to the nearby Keloid Clinic – a private health centre for plastic surgery – where the opportunistic Dr Keloid (Howard Ryshpan) uses her as his guinea pig. Cronenberg's disparaging reaction to institutional life is central to his films, most potently in his early works, from the Somafree Institute in The Brood (1979) to Consec in Scanners (1981) and Spectacular Optical in Videodrome (1983), in which they all lead towards disease, trauma, and death.

Foreseeing present day skin graft and stem cell techniques, Cronenberg introduces the viewer to 'neutral field tissue', which has the ability to rebuild damaged flesh and conform itself according to the characteristics of its new locale on the human body; this is a continuation of a thought process started in 1975 with Shivers. In that film, within the Starliner Tower (an apartment complex on the outskirts of Montreal, designed to house every consumer need) a parasite has been developed, intended to replicate human organs, but which instead turns the host into a sex-crazed lunatic intent on only three things: lust, murder, and the spreading of their disease. The final shot of the film sees the contaminated inhabitants of this secluded, stylish, and modern community heading off to corrupt the rest of the world, an infection aimed outwards by comparison to the inward spread of disinhibition and social collapse witnessed in J.G. Ballard's novel High Rise, also released in 1975; Cronenberg would adapt Ballard's 1973 novel Crash to much controversy in 1996. Building on this shared fascination, Rabid continues Cronenberg's critique on a progressive society by subtly undermining comfortable middle-class idleness as a predatory civilisation obsessed with cosmetic surgery...

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Season of the Witch (George A. Romero, 1972) Blu-Ray Review...

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“I thought you were intrigued by it when you were so afraid. Being afraid is necessary to believing.” While it came as a commercial disappointment, the second in as many years for George A. Romero (following on from 1971's There's Always Vanilla), his 1972 film Season of the Witch proves to be an intriguing companion piece to its predecessor. Amidst the fervour of social change that was sweeping America at the time (particularly the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment), Season of the Witch peeks behind the white picket fences of suburbia to witness one housewife's attempt to escape her mid-life malaise – through Witchcraft...

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Francesca (Luciano Onetti, 2015) DVD Review

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“Through me you pass into the city of woe, through me you pass into eternal pain.” In recent years the 'neo-giallo' movement has grown, moving hand-in-hand with the re-evaluation of gialli from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, as well as the few that were released in the 1990s. Through DVD and now Blu-Ray – distributed by high quality and dedicated labels such as Arrow Video, 88 Films, Shameless Screen Entertainment (plus many more in various markets around the globe) – the genre has gained a whole new audience, with the films afforded lavish restoration and supplemental packages for unparallelled home viewing experiences. With the love spreading for these movies – made by filmmakers such as Dario Argento, Mario Bava, and Sergio Martino (among many others) – it was only natural that new examples of the genre would begin to appear. Masks, Amer, The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears, and Yellow are all examples of this 'new old school' of highly stylised murder mystery – and the Argentinian Francesca (from the director of Sonno Profondo) is perhaps the one which nails the classic style closest of all...

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Live Like A Cop Die Like A Man (Ruggero Deodato 1976) DVD Review

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“What are we coming to when they let common criminals join the police?” Ruggero Deodato will perhaps forever be inextricably linked to his notorious grand guignol video nasty Cannibal Holocaust, but the famous Italian director tried his hands at numerous genres. He dabbled in gialli with the likes of The Washing Machine, for instance, albeit in the 1990s long after the movement's heyday in the 1970s. Indeed, three genres ruled supreme at the Italian box office – the aforementioned gialli (bloody murder mysteries), sex comedies, and crime films (generally referred to as poliziotteschi), and it is in this latter category that Deodato produced one of his finest films. Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man (what a fantastic title!) is an ultra-charged poliziottescho that knows no bounds of shame, as tough-as-nails coppers take on the dangerous world of crime...

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The Nice Guys - mini review...

What's it about?
Los Angeles, 1977. A goon for hire and a bumbling Private Investigator, both with questionable morals and a streak of bad luck trailing in their wake, find themselves thrown together as they investigate a case of corporate conspiracy that spirals outwards from the death of porno star 'Misty Mountains'.
Who would I recognise in it?
Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe, Matt Bomer, Kim Basinger, Keith David.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Shane Black brings his love of L.A. and crime fiction back to the silver screen with a hefty dose of humour ladled on top. If you dug the vibe of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang then you'll know what to expect here, but with an added 1970s groove and a rowing back from the sheer self-awareness that stood so proudly at the heart of Black's last foray into noir-tinged sleuthing in the City of Angels...

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Space Station 76 - mini review...

What's it about?
Domestic drama and workplace comedy meet ... in outer space. A refuelling station somewhere in the vicinity of Earth in 1976, to be exact. A closeted Captain pines for his lost love, a down-trodden maintenance man struggles with marital disharmony, a young girl has to come to terms with death and her Valium-addicted mother, and the new girl on the scene finds herself stuck in-between it all. Infidelity, gossip, rampant materialism, and visits to a two-foot-tall robotic head-shrinker ensue.
Who would I recognise in it?
Liv Tyler, Patrick Wilson, Matt Bomer, Jerry O'Connell, Keir Dullea.

Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Styled after the sci-fi greats of the 1960s and 1970s, from films like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Silent Running", to hand-crafted low-fi sci-fi TV shows like "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", we find ourselves in an alternative 1976 (or thereabouts, we must assume) with all the kitsch fashion, facial hair, and smoking around children to match...

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What Have You Done To Solange? (Massimo Dallamano, 1972) DVD Review

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“I want to Enrico, as much as you want to, but not like this.” Massimo Dallamano's What Have You Done To Solange? is the first entry in a thematic trilogy of 'school girls in peril' films, and was followed by What Have They Done To Your Daughters? (1974), and Trauma (1978, aka Rings of Fear). Loosely based on Edgar Wallace's novel “The Clue of the New Pin”, it has weathered the ravages of time to remain one of the finest examples of giallo film-making.

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Love Goddess of the Cannibals (Joe D'Amato 1978) DVD Review

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“You'll die of pleasure!” Also known as 'Papaya dei Caraibi', Love Goddess of the Cannibals concerns itself with Papaya, a voracious lover and apparent voodoo priestess, who uses the lure of enduring sexual adventure in a tropical paradise to ensnare the male workers at a nearby nuclear reactor. Given a lingering sexual charge by the mucky mind of Joe D'Amato, director of Death Smiles on a Murderer (1973) and the notorious Emmanuelle in America (1977), this is certainly a film for fans of classic European sleaze.

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Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (Umberto Lenzi, 1972) Review

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“Let's make a hypothesis – two dead girls and a single killer.” Umberto Lenzi (Eyeball, Oasis of Fear) traditionally kicks off his films with a quick-firing few minutes to get the audience's pulse racing, and Seven Blood-Stained Orchids is no different. A black-gloved killer driving through the night accompanied by composer Riz Ortolani's laid-back grooves, the ever-present flick knife gleaming in the moon light, a home invasion, and then the savage bludgeoning of a prostitute – Lenzi isn't one for hanging around during his opening act.

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Seven Deaths In The Cat's Eye (Antonio Margheriti, 1973) DVD Review

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With gialli, you'd usually find a straight-razor-wielding maniac running amok in and around the beautiful architecture of an Italian city (often-times Rome), but Antonio (Cannibal Apocalypse) Margheriti's Seven Deaths In The Cat's Eye (aka Cat's Murdering Eye) stands out from the crowd with a Scottish setting in a coldly gothic castle. It's as if the frenzied slew of 1970s giallo crashed head-first with a mist-wreathed Hammer Horror Film.

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Triple Bill Mini Musings: Ilsa Trilogy Edition...

Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS (1975):
What's the Plot?
The first appearance of Dyanne Thorne's exploitation icon - the savage and sensual Ilsa of various employ. Set during World War II, the film takes place in an isolated prisoner camp used primarily for sadistic medical tests, as well as Ilsa's own private experimentations in search of supporting her theory that women are far more capable of dealing with pain than men (cue some rather graphic and disturbing brutalities). However, with an Americanised German native by the name of Wolf brought to the camp, an uprising is soon in the offing - as well as the chance for Ilsa to finally be sated between the sheets.

Raunch Factor?
Numerous energetic sexual encounters between Ilsa and Wolf - who is capable of lasting as long as he wants - sometimes involving a couple of her female cohorts. Thorne fans get plenty of bang for their buck. Frequent nudity in general, too, albeit sometimes in rather distasteful contexts.

Gore Volume?
This is the most savage entry in the series with particularly nasty blood-soaked interludes in the medical wing throughout the film. Boiled flesh, ocular trauma, death-by-lashing, bodies ravaged by disease and so on. It gets pretty rough at times and even seasoned genre fans will find their limits tested.

What's the Vibe?
Quite nasty and rather tasteless, in essence, and yet understandably iconic in exploitation cinema. The fact that it takes place during WWII and inside a prison camp makes the tone particularly horrible and mean-spirited. What's more, the generally bleak tone sits decidedly at odds with the campy exploitation elements (e.g. the athletic bedroom antics in Ilsa's private residence). Even stranger is that this film, filled with such brutality, was shot on the same set as beloved American TV sitcom Hogan's Heroes. Exploiting Nazis and WWII for entertainment isn't anything new by any means, but She-Wolf of the SS frequently crosses the boundaries of taste that makes for an uneven viewing experience, stuck somewhere between grindhouse titillation and repulsive recreation. Even the sense of relieving triumph come the finale takes a swift beat-down.

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Watch Me When I Kill (Antonio Bido, 1977) DVD Review

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Otherwise known as “The Cat's Victims” or “The Cat With The Jade Eyes”, Watch Me When I Kill was Antonio Bido's first foray into the world of giallo filmmaking. Coming from a background in art house film, Bido wanted a commercial hit that would appeal in equal measure to film buffs and general audiences. Taking inspiration from the likes of Hitchcock and Argento, and combining the original, artier script with more mainstream adaptations, Watch Me When I Kill came into being.

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The Hollywood Strangler Meets The Skid Row Slasher (Wolfgang Schmidt, 1979) Review

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Wolfgang Schmidt is actually a pseudonym for Ray Dennis Steckler, who is best known for his 1963 movie “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies”. Steckler had numerous aliases which included Sven Christian – credited here in a dual-role of Cinematographer and Editor – and was well known for working on an extremely low budget (sometimes just a few thousand dollars).

If you're into ultra low budget, down-and-dirty slasher flicks, then you've come to the right place.

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Autopsy (Armando Crispino, 1975) Review

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Otherwise known as “The Magician” or “Macchie Solari” (“Sunspots”), this is a review of the uncut version of the film which clocks in at 100 minutes, as opposed to the 85 minute cut.

“People have been knocking themselves off like flies.” Thrust into the boiling hot, blinding white light of the sun – as solar flares erupt and moans of sexual ecstasy call out – Armando Crispino's giallo gets off to a fast-paced and violent start. A rash of suicides plague the beautiful city of Rome as it bakes in the August sun – a woman slits her wrists, a man wraps a bag over his head before diving into a river, another blows himself up in his petrol-drenched car, and a father shoots himself to death after slaughtering his own children.

“It seems sweet to die in August.” There is a blood-soaked madness spreading through the populace, and the morgue is jam-packed with mutilated cadavers – but is every single one of these apparent suicides what they appear to be? Might this be the ideal time for a killer to strike and hide their devious deeds under the guise of suicide?

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Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key (Sergio Martino, 1972) Review

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In the year following his masterpiece giallo The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (1971), Director Sergio Martino returned to the genre with this sordid tale of the Italian aristocracy gone wrong.

“Of course, you'd much rather be drinking from my skull.” Kick-starting under the oil-painted gaze of the recently deceased matriarch of the Rouvigny family, Martino introduces us to the excesses of the Italian aristocracy, housed within a crumbling and hollow mansion. As free-loving guests from a nearby commune enjoy the free booze, and a grope of slave/servant Brenda, the bitter marriage of Oliviero (Luigi Pistilli, The Good The Bad & The Ugly) and Irina (Anita Strindberg, Who Saw Her Die) is laid bare to all without a care in Oliviero's mind.

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Eyeball (Umberto Lenzi, 1975) Review

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Umberto Lenzi is best known for such violence-spewing film fare as Nightmare City and Cannibal Ferox, but as a director who dipped his toe into numerous pools, some of his other work has faded into the background. Lenzi's optic-bothering giallo Eyeball is one such obscure effort.

“The flowers of death? I'm far from ready.” A bus-load of American tourists are in Barcelona to see the sights but, for some, the glint of a raised dagger will be the last image to flash across their moist little peepers. The holidaying ensemble are a motley bunch – the unhappily married Alvarados, a grandfather with his bored granddaughter Jenny, shifty-looking Reverend Bronson (George Rigaud, The Case of the Bloody Iris), letchy photographer Lisa and her lesbian muse Naiba, all leaving secretary Paulette (Martine Brochard) looking positively dull by comparison.

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Night Train Murders (Aldo Lado, 1974)

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The following is the third of three reviews for the "Shameless Slasher Nasties Box Set" - it's a 3-disc DVD comprised of Killer Nun, Torso, and Night-Train Murders.

Like Killer Nun (included in this box set), Aldo Lado’s riff on Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left (1972) found its way onto the Department of Public Prosecutions list of 72 banned video nasties in the 1980s. However, similarly to Berruti’s film, Night Train Murders was later acquitted (33 titles in total were acquitted, leaving 39 that were ‘liable to deprave and corrupt’ anyone who viewed them).

 

While the trailer seems to suggest a lurid and fast-paced thriller, Lado’s ‘rape and revenge’ flick is in fact much more reliant on suspense and slow-build tension – and a script loaded with brutal social commentary. Furthermore, despite Lado claiming to have never seen Craven’s vicious Vietnam-weary The Last House on the Left (itself heavily inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s 1959 film The Virgin Spring), there are numerous similarities between the two films – two girls fall victim to a gang of thugs (one of whom is a junkie) only for them to in-turn fall victim to the upper middle class parents of one of the victims (one of whom is a Doctor). That said, the two films differ in two key ways – Craven’s documentary-like film is far more directly plotted, while Lado’s visually luxuriant film possesses far more twisted characters.

 

Opening amidst the heavily populated consumer haven of a German shopping district on Christmas Eve, Lado’s social criticism gets off to an early start – the safety of this scene getting interrupted when the two antagonists (“Blackie” and “Curly”) mug a boozy Santa Claus. They escape the police by hopping aboard a departing train – the same train that is carrying Margaret and her friend Lisa on their way to spend the holidays in Italy – and so a night of depravity is set in motion.

 

Amongst the passengers are a cross-section of 1970s European society – including happy families, students, Catholic priests cheating at chess, and a group of well-heeled adults discussing the very nature of morality, democracy, and if there is a middle-ground between liberalism and totalitarianism. Indeed it is within this last group that we meet one of the key antagonists – ‘The Lady on the Train’ – an upper middle class woman who hides her sexual perversions in her handbag and behind her veil. It is with this character that the social criticism of the script is most potent, unleashing her inner demons via a toilet-bound tryst with Blackie – in this way depravity is almost treated like a sexually transmitted disease that brings out the worst in her suppressed character. It’s quite literally a clash of the high society and the seething proletariat.

 

As the film progresses, the social commentary continues to come thick-and-fast as the tension slowly builds – seemingly happy marriages are shown to be on the rocks, and the very nature of temptation and shame are embodied brilliantly in the figure of a bourgeois voyeur. Indeed, the film really explodes once we’ve swapped trains and the central protagonists and antagonists find themselves secreted away in a booth with each other – and it is here that Ennio Morricone’s score (central to which is a chilling, stalking harmonica) creates an almost unbearable amount of anxiety as events take a dramatic and violent turn for the worse.

 

Cast in a sinister and seductive blue light, Gabor Pogany’s cinematography expertly melds vice, violence, and virgin innocence, while Alberto Gallitti’s exceptional editing fizzes with inspired cross-cutting and sound design that blends two distinct worlds into a distillation of the troubled underbelly of (at the time at least) modern European life. While The Last House on the Left focussed more on up-front violence, Night Train Murders instead opts for chillingly lifting the veil on the potential moral squalor inside any one of us – and it is precisely this kind of rich thematic texturing that proves Lado’s film to be an extremely rewarding entry in the ‘rape and revenge’ sub-genre.

Shameless Screen Entertainment do themselves proud with a clean and crisp transfer, and a nice audio presentation that preserves all of the Godfather-like use of clattering train wheels on the soundtrack; trailers round out the package. The 3-disc 'Shameless Slasher Nasties Box Set' also comes with an essay insert from noted film writer Kim Newman (providing brief but informative context), and the set itself comes with impressive cover art that mimics a rental videotape (complete with "Be Kind and Rewind" sticker).

Torso (Sergio Martino, 1973) - DVD Review

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The following is the second of three reviews which I'll be posting for the "Shameless Slasher Nasties Box Set" - it's a 3-disc DVD comprised of Killer Nun, Torso, and Night-Train Murders.

Like Killer Nun (included in this box set), this Italian giallo flick is presented uncut in anamorphic widescreen with a handful of newly re-inserted scenes that were previously expurgated – scenes that provide some extra connections between the dots. Sergio Martino had previously delivered The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (1972) starring giallo legend Edwige Fenech, and would go on to unleash Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978) starring Stacy Keach and a certain Bond Girl by the name of Ursula Andress. However Torso (appropriately sub-titled “Carnal Violence”) has perhaps brought the director the most acclaim in wider circles, as it stands as an excellent example of the slasher movie during the early gestation of the sub-genre.

In advance of early American slashers like Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974), Martino’s film features examples of some of the most common themes and iconography found in such fare. Writers such as Carol J. Clover, Reynold Humphries, and many more have discussed these elements – particularly the so-called ‘final girl’ – the one female to make it out alive due to her superior moral standing. Indeed here the femme who escapes fatal consequences is played by Suzy Kendall – who also starred in Dario Argento’s superb debut The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1971).

However, Martino and his screenwriting partner Ernesto Gastaldi, and his Director of Photography Giancarlo Ferrando seem far more interested in gazing at any one of the other girls who populate the film’s bevy of gorgeous babes – gals who are no strangers to getting their kit off at a moment’s notice. That all said, once we move into the second half of the movie the focus finally lands squarely on Kendall’s shoulders – indeed it’s very much a film of two halves.

The first half rapidly makes it way through a whole succession of tense stalkings, bared breasts (even in the very first shot!), violent murders, and no end of red herrings and possible suspects. True to gialli, practically anyone is a suspect, and in a film populated by sex-obsessed men who lustfully/creepily leer at the central female cast non-stop, there’s no end of potential slashers. It is then with the second half that the pace slows and the spotlight lands on mystery and suspense – indeed a triple-slaying is entirely off-screen – but Kendall more than makes up for it as she becomes a captivating captive.

Making exceptionally good use of locations, Martino’s film certainly isn’t lacking in the looks department, but pleasingly it’s no “F Grade” student either. “Carnal Violence” might not be especially catchy as a title, but it matches the content perfectly. Themes of sex, death, and where the two collide are central to the plot, which also features an underlying dose of socio-political commentary. Not only is there a clear gender gap on display (many of the surviving males are sexually defunct, unlike the females), but so too is there a distinct generation gap (the students versus the ineffective police).

Shameless Screen Entertainment provides a solid transfer, however it isn’t without some problems: the audio source shows wear & tear at times, as does the video source – but being that this is the sort of film that epitomised the video nasty era (while, incredibly, never becoming one!), the slightly rough look only adds to the experience. We’re unlikely to get a prettier looking Torso in the future; finally, a series of trailers round out the disc. The 3-disc 'Shameless Slasher Nasties Box Set' also comes with an essay insert from noted film writer Kim Newman (providing brief but informative context), and the set itself comes with impressive cover art that mimics a rental videotape (complete with "Be Kind and Rewind" sticker).

Slasher fans and giallo fans are both exceedingly well-served here, as Sergio Martino crafts a murder mystery that is as sleazy as it is involving; a must-see.

Killer Nun (Giulio Berruti, 1979) - DVD Review

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The following is the first of three reviews which I'll be posting for the "Shameless Slasher Nasties Box Set" - it's a 3-disc DVD comprised of Killer Nun, Torso, and Night-Train Murders.

 

Presented fully uncut for the first time in the United Kingdom, and including freshly re-introduced scenes previously excised by the producers, Shameless Screen Entertainment bring us a nicely spruced-up presentation of Giulio Berruti’s Killer Nun. Previously one of the entries on the Department of Public Prosecution’s list of video nasties here in the UK, the film is based on a true story.

Oftentimes you read the words “based on a true story” and it’s anything but, however Killer Nun is based on a case of a Belgian nun who underwent brain surgery and consequently became a morphine addict to assuage the torment of persistent headaches and mood swings. In order to feed her addiction she would ‘help along’ patients in her care who were near-to-death, only to steal their precious belongings and pawn them in the city for money to buy the drugs she craved.

 

So far that’s the majority of the plot of the movie right there – although nowhere in the true story were there actual murders, torture, or bisexual nuns played by heavy-chested Playboy models. Anita Ekberg (La Dolce Vita) plays Sister Gertrude – the morphine-addicted nun – while Paola Morra plays her sexually obsessed junior Sister Mathieu (the actress was the Italian Playmate of the Month of February 1978).

Today the film is much tamer than its reputation or title might suggest, however it’s a relatively high-minded film that dares to mix in a little social commentary about institutionalised cover-ups in religious organisations. It’s perhaps more akin to What Have They Done To Your Daughters (Massimo Dallamano, 1974) in the respect that it’s not quite as lurid as you might expect from the title – unlike Strip Nude For Your Killer (Andrea Bianchi, 1975), which is precisely as sleazy and violent as you would anticipate. That said, considering the juxtaposition of murder with religion, and sex with Sisters of the Cloth, I can picture how it would have historically been considered quite the controversial film in certain quarters – indeed to some, for those very reasons, it could remain offensive to this day.

 

Giulio Berruti and Alberto Tarallo’s script plays with thematic substance and a gradual pace, and while it may be comparatively light on sex and gore unlike some of its peers, the film is more then backed-up by a quality production. Tonino Maccoppi’s cinematography is – typically for Italian cinema – beautiful, and is nicely complimented by Mario Giacco’s editing, and Alessandro Alessandroni’s exceedingly memorable score.

Shameless Screen Entertainment’s DVD offers a lovely restored print, trailers, and a brief chat with star Anita Ekberg. The 3-disc 'Shameless Slasher Nasties Box Set' also comes with an essay insert from noted film writer Kim Newman (providing brief but informative context), and the set itself comes with impressive cover art that mimics a rental videotape (complete with "Be Kind and Rewind" sticker).

Fans of this kind of cinema should be pleasantly surprised by Killer Nun, and would do well to give it a spin.