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Rabid
The early films of David Cronenberg were fine pieces of work: good solid horror, shot through with intelligence and creativity. Rabid was perhaps not the best of them, but it was nicely atmospheric in an art-house gross-out kind of way.
The story is pretty straightforward once you get past the set-up: a girl who’s been seriously injured in a motorbike accident has some radical, experimental surgery performed upon her and becomes infected with a highly contagious plague akin to rabies. Thereafter she becomes a blood-sucking monster, all hell breaks out, and maniacs are unleashed upon society from all directions. What makes it particularly fun is the idea that the procedure she undergoes is performed by a cosmetic surgeon, adapting skin-grafting techniques to reconstructing her small intestine – in the scientist-goes-too-far stakes, this is an unlikely entrant, a man who makes his living from flattering the vanity of the wealthy.
As with all Cronenberg’s pre-Dead Zone films, he wrote the screenplay himself, so he gets his name all over the cover, but it was Richard Lewis who got the somewhat unenviable job of transferring it to the page. It doesn’t really work, since there’s way too much action to be described, but it’s not a complete disaster.
The story is pretty straightforward once you get past the set-up: a girl who’s been seriously injured in a motorbike accident has some radical, experimental surgery performed upon her and becomes infected with a highly contagious plague akin to rabies. Thereafter she becomes a blood-sucking monster, all hell breaks out, and maniacs are unleashed upon society from all directions. What makes it particularly fun is the idea that the procedure she undergoes is performed by a cosmetic surgeon, adapting skin-grafting techniques to reconstructing her small intestine – in the scientist-goes-too-far stakes, this is an unlikely entrant, a man who makes his living from flattering the vanity of the wealthy.
As with all Cronenberg’s pre-Dead Zone films, he wrote the screenplay himself, so he gets his name all over the cover, but it was Richard Lewis who got the somewhat unenviable job of transferring it to the page. It doesn’t really work, since there’s way too much action to be described, but it’s not a complete disaster.
- GenresHorror
144 pages, Paperback
First published June 8, 1978
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About the author
Richard Lewis
206 books6 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 15, 2019
You can’t trust your mother, your best friend, the neighbour next door. One minute they’re perfectly normal, the next - RABID. Pray it doesn’t happen to you!
Based on Cronenberg’s screenplay, this is a straightforward adaption by Richard Lewis, who was publishing plenty of paperback horror originals in the UK at the time. Told at great pace - there’s a lot of action - this doesn’t spend much time in character’s heads and, on occasion, set pieces go rattling by where you think, after the fact, he could have got much more tension and terror out of them. I enjoyed it and I particularly liked the way he covers the scientific mumbo-jumbo - a character will ask Dr Keloid (the doctor who essentially starts the rabies plague off) what he means and he explains it. If you like this sort of thing, you’ll enjoy it but if not, it won’t convert you.
Based on Cronenberg’s screenplay, this is a straightforward adaption by Richard Lewis, who was publishing plenty of paperback horror originals in the UK at the time. Told at great pace - there’s a lot of action - this doesn’t spend much time in character’s heads and, on occasion, set pieces go rattling by where you think, after the fact, he could have got much more tension and terror out of them. I enjoyed it and I particularly liked the way he covers the scientific mumbo-jumbo - a character will ask Dr Keloid (the doctor who essentially starts the rabies plague off) what he means and he explains it. If you like this sort of thing, you’ll enjoy it but if not, it won’t convert you.
December 21, 2014
Novelization of the Cronenberg film of the same name. Very little deviation from the source material, adds nothing new except a tad more depth to the relationship between Hart and Rose. Cracking pace, not particularly well, or interestingly written.
January 15, 2020
Best part of this novelization is the cover
April 7, 2022
Rose involved in a motorbike accident receives a life saving operation which in turn sends her craving blood and infecting people turning them into crazies with green stuff oozing from their mouths. Very fast paced and as a novelisation, really true to the extremely well shot movie. Creepy, dark and scary. And an awesome cover.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews