Rabies

Today's movie is yet another horror, so if you detect an oversaturation of this genre compared to others in my recent reviews, you are most correct.  Halloween is coming up, so I am thusly in the mood.  As well, I have been having to watch some horror movies for an upcoming Halloween podcast.  Today it is all about Rabies, an Israeli horror film (apparently the first Israeli horror film) which was randomly selected by myself to be a part of the Halloween podcast.  If you look it up on Rotten Tomatoes, it has only been reviewed by eight critics.

The movie is about the actions of a psychopath, but what makes this movie quite different than other horrors is that the psychopath does not kill anyone.  The film starts with a woman caught in an ominous trap, and her brother set to free her.  We then meet a park ranger (along with his wife and his dog), four young people who are lost while looking for a tennis court, and two police officers.  All of their paths end up intertwining because of the trap that was set by the psychopath.

As the movie moves along, the actions set in motion by the psycho trigger a butterfly effect that ripples through these other characters.  We have a number of good people who end up becoming murderers over the course of the film.  The true brilliance of this movie is the progression that allows us to believe how these normal people would do the things they do in this situation.  It can be hard enough for a movie to chronicle how one good person could end up committing heinous actions, and Rabies was sufficiently able to show a number of people reaching that point in a believable way.

The key to this movie is that the would be murderers were all 'good' people.  They were common folk who were not bent on malicious activity.  This is important because this is how the name of the film makes sense, and the entire premise.  It is these good and healthy vessles that became contaminated and infected and turned to this psychopath's sickness.  It really did spread like a disease, taking with it anyone who came in contact with it and slowly destroying them from the inside.

I was lead through the full range of emotions during this movie as it had moments that I found to be humourous, horrific, touching, disarming, sobering, and grounding.  A lot of it had to do with the high quality of the script and the terrific casting.  Each character felt right for their role, which is incredibly important to pull off this type of cascade effect.  I believed everything about the characters, from their motivations to their personalities, and that strung me along for every turn this movie took.

Another great element was the use of visual gore, or the lack thereof.  The scenes were shot in ways that allowed for events of surprise and also for a build up and anticipation to a dreadful act that we could see coming.  When they showed images of gore, it looked real enough and the camera did not linger on it long enough to be either scrutinized or for the audience to become accustomed to the horrific images.  As well, it never relied on showing absolutely everything, with some things happening off camera.  When movies show everything, it leaves us desensitized and creates no emotional effect.  In this film we toyed with the gore, teased with it, only every so often catching a glance.  That is when it is effective and is able to connect us with emotions of discomfort and anxiety.

Rabies is a film that should satisfy most horror fans, and hopefully people do not get scared off by the subtitles.  It is entertaining, horrific, smart, and fun.  It may not have jump scares, found footage, haunted houses, zombies, ghost hunters, escaped criminals, cannibals, or any other horror cliche out there.  It does have something even more scarey and unsettling, and that is ordinary everyday people turning into brutal murderers.  While movies like The Crazies pull this off with the assistance of outbreaks of chemical agents, Rabies does it with good, old fashioned, human nature.

Rating - 4 out of 4 stars