Synopsis for
Rabid (1977) More at IMDbPro »

Rose (Marilyn Chambers) and her boyfriend Hart (Frank Moore) are taking a little spin in the Quebec countryside on Hart's motorcycle when they have an accident. A family in a camper van stops in the middle of the road to argue about directions, and Hart must swerve to avoid them, going off the road and crashing. A patient at the nearby Keloid Clinc for Plastic Surgery witnesses the accident and calls for an ambulance. At the clinic, Murray Cypher (Joe Silver) pitches a promising franchising deal to Dr. Dan Keloid (Howard Ryshpan) and his wife Roxanne (Patricia Gage). Keloid is unconvinced, afraid that he'll become the "Colonel Sanders of plastic surgery". Just then, an ambulance containing Hart and Rose arrives. Hart has a broken hand, separated shoulder, and a concussion, but Rose, having been pinned under the motorcycle, is more severely injured. Dr. Keloid recognizes that Rose needs immediate surgery and decides to perform a radical procedure on her, one which uses morphogenetically neutral grafts of her own skin to patch the injured tissues in and on her chest and abdomen. The treated skin will be able to form new tissue of whatever type it is grafted to, but it also might lead to cancer.

A month or two passes. Hart has already gone home to Montreal, but Rose still remains in a coma at the Keolid Clinic. Then one night, one of the other patients, Lloyd Walsh (J. Roger Periad), hears Rose screaming and goes to her room. She has awakened and is pulling out her I.V. drip tube. In an attempt to warm her and calm her down, Lloyd holds her, and Rose causes some sort of vague injury to him as she holds him. When examined a few hours later, Lloyd can't remember anything afterwards, and the doctor doesn't know what caused his injuries. They know only that his blood isn't clotting and Lloyd's right side has no feeling. Dr. Keloid thinks that it might have been a stroke and transfers him to Montreal General.

Over the next few days, Rose leaves the clinic periodically to feed; her experimental procedures have caused a wild card mutation in her body, and now the only thing she can subsist on is human blood. To help her attain it, a bizarre new organ has developed in Rose's armpit; through a small sphincter opening, a large red phallic spike emerges to pierce her victims and draw blood like a syringe. First she feeds on a cow in the barn of a nearby farm, but she vomits up the blood, realizing that she needs only human blood, so she feeds instead on the drunken farmer who wanders into the barn. The next night, Rose attacks a young nurse in a hot tub, and then hides her unconscious body in a freezer.

The next day, Lloyd discharges himself from the clinic. He hails a taxi to take him to the airport. But during the trip, Lloyd, already looking deathly pale, transforms into a foaming, green-eye zombie-like person and attacks the driver, biting out part of his neck making the driver lose control of the car. The taxi breaks through a bridge guardrail and the car is totalled by an approaching truck, killing both the driver and the infected Lloyd.

At the clinic, Dr. Keloid is examining the unconscious Rose. He notices the strange opening under her arm, but Rose wakes up and the phallic syringe emerges and strikes him in the hand.

At a nearby diner, the farmer, infected the previous night by Rose, walks in, bleeding from his left eyeball where Rose's stuck the phallic thing, and after asking for chicken, he attacks and bites a waitress before he is subdued by the cook and a few patrons.

At the clinic, Rose phones Hart to come to her aid, for she feels that she's in trouble. Hart calls Murray Cypher to tag along with him. Later that day, Dr. Keolid goes into the O.R. to operate on a patient when he suddenly begins foaming at the mouth and also transforms into a green-eyed zombie who proceeds to hack off a nurse's finger with surgical scissors and drinks her blood. A few orderlies attack the vicious Dr. Keolid, as Rose takes advantage of the chaos and confusion to make her escape from the clinic. She hitches a ride to Montreal from a passing truck driver, who has food in the cab of his truck. After he offers some to the famished Rose, she eats it and it seems to satisfy her momentarily, but she then vomits it back up, eventually feeding on the driver as she has done to the others.

Hart and Murray pass the diner where the infected farmer attacked the waitress, and then arrive at the clinic to find more police cars and a rabid and vicious looking Dr. Keloid in the back of a police van, growling and foaming at the mouth. The police tell Murray and Hart that they think it's a new strain of rabies. Hart panics when he learns that a body was found in a freezer, but to his slight relief, it's the nurse that Rose killed in the hot tub.

Meanwhile, Rose hitches a ride with another car driver, leaving behind the unconcious truck driver whom is also infected. He is woken up by a highway patrolman and goes on his way. The trucker returns that night to a depot where he transforms and attacks his colleagues at the place, infecting some of them.

At the police station, the chief of police, Claude LePointe, meets with Hart, Murray and a few public health officials who talk of an epidemic. Just then, as Hart and Murray watch a TV broadcast of various other reports of attacks, an officer, who was apparently bitten by the infected Dr. Keloid at the clinic, appears growling and foaming at the mouth. The infected officer attacks Hart only to be shot dead by the other officers. To stop the disease from progressing, everyone at the scene, including Hart and Murray, are to be held at the police station for 48 hours. Hart calls Mindy Kent (Susan Roman) who is Rose's best friend, and is pleased to hear that Rose has been in touch with her. Over the phone, Hart tells Mindy to keep Rose at her apartment until he can get there.

Meanwhile, Rose arrives in Montreal, meets with Mindy, and asks to stay with her in her apartment for a few days, but refuses to explain why. Mindy watches another TV broadcast detailing a new strain of lethal rabies that is now reporting all over Montreal. That night, Rose goes out to the local red-light district and visits a sex cinema. A leering patron sits next to her to fondle her, only to become a victim himself.

The next day, Claude LePointe is riding in a limo with a local health official to inform the mayor that the situation is getting out of control. Just then, the limo is blocked at a construction sight, and two infected crewmen attack, putting a jackhammer through the limo door and dragging the shocked driver out to feed on him, while the official and LePointe barely escape by driving away in reverse. Mindy is riding on a subway train when an infected woman attacks another passenger, causing panic and forcing Mindy and the rest of the passengers to flee after the train arrives at the station.

On TV, Dr. Royce Gentry talks about the dozens of rabies cases popping up all over the city, and advises a "shoot-to-kill" policy to prevent the infected from infecting others. Rose goes out to a local shopping mall filled with Christmas shoppers. Another leering man approaches her to make small talk, and to try to pick her up. As Rose agrees to walk with him, he asks her for a light, but she tells him that she doesn't smoke. The man asks another man standing nearby for a light, and the man turns around... an infected zombie who proceeds to bite and infect the man Rose is with. Panic breaks out as two armed security guards appear and shoot the infected man dead, as well as an unfortunate man dressed as Santa. The guards shoot the wounded man who tried to pick up Rose as well, since he is now infected.

When Mindy arrives home, Rose hides in her room, in blood-hunger. She tells Mindy not to come into her room for she is not feeling well. Meanwhile, extreme martial law is declared in Montreal and all the surrounding areas. Dr. Royce Gentry makes another TV appearance to announce that the current rabies shots don't appear to be working. But he and his men have developed a vaccine to administer to those not infected with the virus. Those already infected, however, must be killed to prevent the epidemic from spreading any further.

At a National Guard road block to check for people infected, Hart and Murray view a long convoy of soldiers in NBC suits and riding on garbage trucks heading into the city to assist the local authorities with the body disposal. Hart then takes Murray home and drives off to look for Rose. When Murray walks in his house, he is attacked and killed by his wife, now infected. As Hart drives through the deserted city, a infected maniac jumps on his car, but is shot dead by a militia marksman. Soldiers in bio-warfare suites remove the infected man's body to dump it in the nearby garbage truck and spray disinfectant on Hart's car windshield and permit him to carry on his way.

At Mindy's apartment, she watches a news report about a possible "carrier" of this lethal disease which has now been traced back to the Keloid Clinic, who is possibly immune. Rose walks into the room. A little later, Hart arrives to find Rose feasting on Mindy's body. Hart finally realizes that Rose is the carrier of the virus and tries to reason with her to seek treatment, but Rose refuses to believe him. She is in denial that she is feasting on blood and the one responsible for the city-wide epidemic that has now claimed thousands of people. She tries to run, but he chases after her. In a struggle, Hart falls down a fire escape ladder and is knocked out. Rose runs into the apartment building lobby, where she picks up another man in the lobby and has him take her back to his apartment.

To see if Hart's accusations are true, Rose bites the guy and then locks herself in the man's apartment and intends to stay there until she can see whether or not he becomes sick. Rose dials Mindy's phone number, and Hart stumbles back into the apartment to answer it. Rose tells Hart what she is doing, but he knows what will happen and frantically tells her to get out of the man's apartment. Hart sits helplessly at the receiver as the infected man in his apartment wakes up, growling and foaming at the mouth, and approaches Rose....

The next morning, Montreal is nearly deserted. The streets are quiet except for distant gunfire and the sound of police and ambulance sirens. Soldiers in bio-ware suits find Rose's stiff, open-eyed body, laying next to some garbage cans in an alley. The body collectors pick up her body, toss it in the back of a garbage truck, and drive away, not realizing that she is the carrier of the virus.... and possibly the solution and antidote to the mayhem that continues to plague the city.

[Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl]