Rabid

Cronenberg’s follow-up to his 1975 debut feature, the high-rise horror Shivers, stars former adult film star Marilyn Chambers (in her first mainstream leading role) as Rose, a car accident victim left mangled and comatose before winding up on Dr. Dan Keloid’s operating table. After undergoing radical emergency plastic surgery, she survives but is left with a couple of side effects: a phallic stinger that forms under her armpit and a ravenous desire for blood… Although Rabid plays with the same themes of sexual anxiety, mutation, and disease as Shivers, in this film Cronenberg forgoes the claustrophobic atmosphere for a more expansive Canadian landscape. From Quebec to Montreal, Rose hunts victims and infects crowds of people with an unknown disease that drives them insane and bloodthirsty.  Courtesy of TIFF Film Reference Library.