Films like Rabies are painful to watch for many reasons, however, last of all because they are intended to induce pain in the viewer. Hailed as "Israel's first horror film", the film does disappoint on that level. Take the poster to your left for whatever you want it to mean, but there is little creepiness or gruesome fantasy to be found in here. Rabies is pretty much a cinematic summation of the genre tropes Contrived Conincidence, Ten Little Murder Victims and Coincidence Magnet. Also, "Dirty Cop". And "Terrible Serial Killer is terrible at what he does". You see, Rabies, we have to talk...The film opens with a clever shot in which a young woman is caught in an underground chamber/trap in the woods by, probably, an insane serial killer (although we have no idea why or how or... oh, never mind). Her brother comes to her aid (who obviously loves her in an incestuous way) but then is somehow wounded... it seems...
The film then jumps forward (urgh) to a few teens/20somethings that do nothing but dick around the israeli countryside to at some point get laid probably by Yael Grobglas. There are some lesbian overtones in the second female companion which are thrown in for good measures but do little to improve the action.
So the teenagers meet up with the slightly wounded and definitely annoying brother of said trapped girl who is his sister. The two boys decide to go with him into the woods to search the girl while the two girls in the car wait for the police that was called in for help. Meanwhile, a hunter (??) says goodbye to his girlfriend and goes about his own business in the woods (aka, he dicks around), gets his dog killed by... the serial killer or whoever that is, and finds the girl.
Meanwhile (sigh) the two girls are joined by the cops, of which one turns out to be a perverted, sleazy fucker who unceremoniously sprays his saliva over the two girls in a lusty manner, while the three boys in search of the trapped girl encounter bear traps and do what boys their age do (clue: they are annoying).
Does this sound like a horror film? Well, not to me.
Rabies is actually funny enough to entertain. Some of the "OH FUCK WTF"-moments are rather silly and truly life the spirit of the entire thing. However, there really isn't much meat to everything. The serial killer is not explained thoroughly (hell, we don't even know if he is one to begin with), the entire shabado happens because of two annoying incest teens, the last half hour drags along and tries to reveal even the latest bit of irony in its protagonists demises... in short, the film suffers from everything that episodic films suffer from if the scriptwriter thinks he's cleverer than the audience, yet has little to nothing to say about what is actually going on.
So, who really cares for good dialogue, detailed characterization, creative methods to dispose of protagonists and flashy cinematography if everything only ends with one of them making the wrong move at the wrong time, setting off a chain reaction that ends in an apocalyptic outcome? Coincidence rules everything and guides every characters step, ending in a contrived, only marginally interesting plot with little coherence - "Dumm gelaufen! - the movie"!
The film also follows the tendency to leave his viewers in a state of complete dumbfoundedness as to what the consequences of the actions depicted in the film actually are, apart of those who obviously die - some of the "plot resolutions" even seem to come completely out of nowhere and are never further explained to begin with.
But I sound harsh! Rabies is a fun film if you are drunk and with some buddies and want to see teenagers dick around the woods and get hacked to pieces by each other in creative ways. Yet, there is little atmosphere, no horror element, no truly intelligent twist, nothing of substance below its outer appeal. So in short: if you like good/funny dialogue and to look at Yael Grobglas, this films is potentially as good as long as she is on the screen, or as long as creative ways are found to bring the plot forward - both of those comprise 70% of the movie.
Rating - 7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment