Rabid

Rabid (1977) is David Cronenberg's Canadian body horror, and you can watch online on iFILM. Critically injured in a motorcycle crash, Rose survives only because surgeons gamble on an experimental skin graft. She recovers. But something her body was never meant to grow comes with the cure.

A fleshy orifice opens under her arm, hiding a retractable stinger, and Rose can now feed on nothing but human blood. When the hunger hits, she has no say in it. Her victims do not simply die either: they turn feral, spreading a rabies-like plague across Montreal until the city tips into quarantine and panic. Adult-film star Marilyn Chambers takes the lead, and Cronenberg mines every ounce of unease from the casting.

This is early Cronenberg sketching the obsession he would chase for decades: the body that betrays its owner, contagion as metaphor. It is cheap, cold, and refuses any comfort at the end. For fans of old-school body horror and the director's roots, it lands. Stream Rabid (1977) online on iFILM.