Rabid

I'm not the biggest fan of remakes or reimaginings but i wanted to watch a movie in the evening and i thought let's give Rabid a chance, since it's based on the work of Cronenberg. I thought it was really well made for the first 45 minutes, i thought it was going to be an arthouse movie since they focused so much on the main character (and her struggle) who suffers from facial deformity which was caused by an accident. And then came the moment where they came up with a great scene which definitely pays tribute to Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, which is one of my favorite scenes from Rabid. After that the movie slowly turns into mediocrity, i love horror but i didn't expected that they would ruin the second half of the movie by turning it into a zombie movie. A real turn off if you ask me, any work of Cronenberg doesn't deserve to be treated like this. There were a few interesting points towards the end but it doesn't save the movie as a whole, what a shame.

What to say about Rabid?

Frankly, I found it more comical than anything else.Its premise is pretty weak, not helped by an at times rather corny plot with often silly horror scenes.

On the upside, the acting is fine and does include appearances of well known Canadian actors.

Moderately watchable but by no means frightening or disturbing.

5/10 from me.

I'm not a huge fan of the Soska sisters. Their most acclaimed movie, American Mary, doesn't do anything for me other than show some potential, and I usually don't like remakes, so as you can see, I'm not the target viewer for this film. I must say that it started horribly, terrible directon, terrible make up, the rhythm was completely off, and the performances were at soap opera level (which I blame on the directors). But after a while the movie started getting some momentum and things started getting better, with some genuinely good shocks and some nice make up effects (I especially like the face after the accident), but that was not enough to salvage the movie and it ended on a sour note with a pretty bad ending. Overall, the low budget and bad direction don't allow this to be more than a mediocre experience of a totally unnecessary remake.

Remaking a movie by a guy who was talented enough to create one of the great all-time remakes is ballsy and almost bound to fail. Rabid is close to being a good remake but has too many issues for my liking.

The story: a beautiful fashion designer has a life-changing accident and is doomed to a future of ugliness, unless she undergoes an experimental operation which has unforseen side-effects for her and the city around her ...

It's a cool premise, as was with the original but the pacing is way off. It takes too long to get off the ground and then when it does, lacks focus and seems to be telling two distinct stories rather than one, whereas Cronenberg's movie has a much sharper narrative.

There are a few grisly scenes but not immensly eye-opening for something that really should have people squirming.

The lead actress is good and, on the whole, the acting is solid but let down in a few places by some support roles. The editing could be a lot slicker; some scenes just felt dragged out and irrelevant.

I think it's worth checking out if you like the original but I'd be surprised if many people hail this as a big success.

So what did I actually watch? I really don't know. I was hoping this movie would be at least a decent remake, or a good B movie. However, at the end I was just wondering WTF it was supposed to be. It's quite different from the original, but not as good, or thoughtful or provocative (I mean, the original lead was an adult movie actress, the new one is a beautiful, established soap opera actress pretending to be ugly).

It's shot well, features good SFX and gore, but many scenes look like their from a telenovela or CW YA TV show. The acting was atrocious at times, the story too convoluted. The last 20 minutes are totally bonkers, unexpected and, in my opinion, unnecessary. But I gotta give the Soskas respect for doing their own thing. Unsuccessfully, but still, they tried. I enjoyed their first feature 'Dead Hooker in a Trunk' a lot more.