Right off the bat this is one of Cronenberg's earliest horror films, and one which apparently garnered a cult following. It's main character, Rose, was played by Marylin Chambers who is otherwise better know for her work in the adult film industry, and I think this might have been her only "normal" acting credit. She actually holds up quite well as the protagonist of the film, and in true Cronenberg form there is no happy ending here, for anyone.
A quick rant: while trying to find a good cover image for this movie, I notice that a lot of them use a brief image midway into the film of a woman from the hospital who freezes to death in a walk-in freezer. It is a brief throwaway scene, and I am entirely unclear on why this image is used so prominently in most cover art depictions, given it is entirely unrepresentative of the rest of the movie.
The premise of the film lies within the venn intersection of plague/pandemic films and zombie apocalypse films. Had I known this was a sort of soft apocalypse zombie plague film I would have watched it a long time ago, actually. Rose and her boyfriend are part of a tragic motorcycle accident, which takes place near the Keloid special surgical hospital focused primarily on cosmetic surgery, but the good Doctor Keloid is also involved in various experimental procedures. To save Rose from deformity and loss of skin, he submits her to a specialized treatment of skin grafts that involve an apparently untested process using morphogenetic treatment. Unknown to the doctor, this treatment causes Rose to change....she heals quickly, but also grows a stinger like appendage which can emerge from near her armpit. This stinger can drink the blood of victims while anesthetizing them and later causing memory loss. Later, the victims recover, but within hours go insane as they manifest an irrational hunger and a desperate need for violence. These infected can, in turn, transmit this sort of "super rabies" to anyone they bite or come into close contact with.
As the movie progresses the disease spreads and soon Montreal is a hotbed of a deadly pandemic. The story unfolds at a tense but measured pace, and focuses on Rose as she at first gives in to her own hunger for blood, even as her incredibly lackluster boyfriend tries to find her. She eventually realizes she may be the source of the plague, and comes up with a way to test and confirm this. The film ends with Montreal potentially in a new era of perpetual martial law as the only solution the government has for containment and treatment is to shoot the manifesting infected.
This film holds up really well. It's got that seventies vibe, which is important to understanding the movie; the pace of the story and the progress of the overall reaction to a growing epidemic are suitable for the time period. This grounded sense of realism makes the movie feel just a bit more realistic and thus a bit scarier than some more over-the-top films of similar nature.
Al in all, this is a movie you will best enjoy if you like vintage horror, but I honestly think it holds up surprisingly well, even if the events of the film would have a harder time making sense in modern cinema. Rose's mutation, for example, would require a bit more explanation as to why she grows a deadly plague-bearing, blood-drinking stinger, for example. But in 1977? Makes perfect sense. Solid B!
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