Find out what GIITTV’s Ewen Hosie makes of Israel’s first entry to the slasher genre.
What’s the story?
The story of Rabies is dyed-in-the-wool slasher hokum and fully aware of it. Four young folk on their way to a tennis bout (two guys and two girls, all attractive naturally) take a wrong turn into unfamiliar woods and hit an already bloody civilian. He is trying to free his sister who has been caught in a trap by a nameless, wordless psychopath .
The two guys elect to help find her while the girls call some police to the scene, one of whom (an uncanny Willem Dafoe doppelganger) has particularly thorough search practices in mind for them on arrival. Connecting everything is a marksman who, having spotted the bloody man’s sister being carried away by the psycho, knocks him out with a tranquiliser dart and attempts to get help for her himself. Chaos ensues when petty jealousies, mistaken identity, sexual assaults and myriad twists unfold.
What makes Rabies any different from any other horror film?
Rabies has a darkly comic tone to its proceedings. Its setting is wholly uninspired and the young protagonists are archetypes. Where it succeeds is in its inversion of genre expectations, making for an unpredictable film throughout. The virgin, the psycho, the disbelieving cops, the pretty girls and the supposed heroes of the piece are not spared any quarter and the crazed descent into eventual violence occurs in a refreshingly digressive manner.
The closest equivalent to the film in tone is 2006’s Severance, a little-known British horror also set in foreboding woodland, but where that film’s tongue was too big for its cheek, choking its audience into submission, Rabies teases its no-doubt knowing audience in more subtle ways. Even its inevitable ‘Oh, so he wasn’t dead after all!’ jump scares are fully signposted with a wry silver screen smirk.
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Where does Rabies fit into the genre?
Overall, Rabies is worth a punt for horror fans but is by no means a classic. Its curiosity value as an Israeli entry is intriguing, but nothing is particularly made of this, as the film could have worked in any generic woodland setting. The twists are silly and unexpected but it suffers for its washed-out, pedestrian camerawork and its generic, low-budget setting. It does gain props for attempting to sustain its tense air in a daylight setting, and while gory does not linger on its displays of chaotic viscera in the way that some of the more squirmy entries of the last decade in the American ‘torture porn’ genre typified by Hostel and its ilk.
Orginally published here: http://www.suite101.com/content/rabies-kalavet-review-a376440#ixzz1Qn9kMb3m
