31 Days, 31 Screams: A New Beginning- Day 3 (Rabid [2019])

And now we hit one of those movies I would never have covered were it not for suggestions. Always good to broaden your mind with spooky experience, so thanks for that, Zenny~  Cutesy shoutouts aside, what we've got here is a recent remake of a David Cronenberg movie, of all things. Maybe the original is better! I don't know, but the 2019 remake was submitted for my approval and so here it is. What we've got here is a really neat structure of horror. Let's call it a slow burn for now. We've got a fashion designer hard on her luck, unappreciated at the office and given a pity date at a party by her best friend, and 10 minutes into the movie she gets into a motorcycle accident that removes half her jaw and has the rest sewn shut. The next 20 minutes are medical drama with despair, and plenty of shots of the poor girl's messed up face. Almost a third of the way in and nothing scary's happened. Well, it's time for TRANSHUMANISM and STEM CELL RESEARCH to come in. Through wild experimental science, our girl is cured! She has a face again!


Oh and also she sneaks out at night in escalating degrees of seducing men and drinking their blood. Not like a vampire, more like a zombie. A rabid animal, if you will. The slow burn nature of the first third helps this to hit harder since it just blindsides you when she goes from making out with a guy to CLAWING HIS FUCKING CHEST APART. Worse yet, the shit spreads, as the first guy she meets she just nibbles on and infects with a rage virus sort of deal. He chews a guy's face off, that guy chews his nurse's fingers off, and we've got ourselves a mass pandemic! Ha ha ha this movie only came out last year. YOU KNEW! YOU KNEW ALL ALONG AND YOU TRIED TO WARN US BUT WE DIDN'T LISTEN! OH DEAR GOD! Our main girl, Rose, is fine though. Aside from all the going out and nibbling on dudes. Or the fact that she, a vegetarian, takes a big old raw steak out of the fridge and licks at it while drinking the blood. Or the tentacle that pops out of her body eventually.


Yeah, this movie is pretty fucked up as far as the gore and body horror goes! The doctor behind the stem cell transplant thing harvested it from his still-alive wife, who's a mutated monster thing on the wall with tentacles and shit. This is all about holding back death, saving the lives of many, and gaining immortality by evolving beyond the ordinary human frame. You know. Becoming blood-drinking tentacle monsters. The end is pretty bleak, as Rose tries to end her own life but fails and is locked up in his lab for good. I had an... interesting experience with this, we'll say. It delivered the spook factor, but I've never actually seen a Cronenberg movie. Well, there's The Dead Zone, but I mean a traditional Cronenberg body horror MOVE BEYOND THE LIMITED HUMAN FLESH kind of fucked up experience. Is this what they're like? I might be able to handle more if that's the case. We'll have to see, but for now that's Rabid. Thanks, Zenny!