Rabid Love (2013)
Directed by: Paul J. Porter
Written by: Hayley Derryberry, Paul J. Porter
Starring: Brandon Stacy, Hayley Derryberry, Jessica Sonneborn, Josh Hammond
USA
AVAILABLE ON R1 DVD: Now, from Midnight Releasing
RUNNING TIME: 93 min
REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera, Official HCF Critic
Two girls hiking through some woods are slain by an unseen maniac or creature. We are in Hodgeman County 1984, and five young people are heading for a cabin in the woods for some hunting, fishing, swimming and partying. Despite talk of a bear which may have killed two locals, all seems fine, with even the natives being nice and friendly, and in any case they are given a bear trap from the local sheriff. Arriving at their destination, they encounter photographer David, who also seems friendly enough, but something deadly is definitely out there, and a group of hippies are all slaughtered next….
I have a distinct fondness for slasher movies, though they can get pretty poor, and sadly Rabid Love belongs in that category. I sometimes feel uncomfortable criticising a production which has been made with very little money, but compare Rabid Love with something like The Evil Dead, a film which Rabid Love is clearly inspired by to the point of having one character dressed just like Ash, and it really does fall short. Rabid Love was clearly meant as a tribute to 80’s horror movies, especially slasher flicks, so there are echoes of films as diverse as Friday The 13th and An American Werewolf In London [as well as the odd more recent one like Cabin Fever] and it does do a good job of recreating things like clothes and camerawork [no crappy shakycam here!], but overall it just isn’t very good. It’s not especially exciting, not very suspenseful and hardly ever actually scary. You’ve seen this kind of thing done far better dozens of times before, and while I admire folk who just go out and make a film, especially when they clearly love some of the same things I do, this particular one just doesn’t really have much to recommend it.
It opens in typical fashion with two girls getting killed. One of them says the classic line: “If I get poison ivy I’m going to rub it all over your face” before going to urinate in the bushes. Something kills them, and you see some blood splashing around, but a major problem with this film is that it’s very coy, with no memorable kills – in fact hardly any of the kills are actually shown properly – and no boobs either, unlike most of the films it tries to emulate. The quintet we are soon introduced to comprise of Heather and John, who seem like the perfect couple, the not so perfect couple of Summer, who wants something better, and Adam, who, when he isn’t hunting, just seems to want to sit and drink beer all day, and single Julie. It’s not long before a potential love, or at least lust, interest comes along for Julie, in the form of hippie-ish photographer David, but as with some other aspects of the story, it’s not followed through. The first hour of this film is actually quite dull. There are a few half-decent attempts at characterisation, plus two good jump scares, one fake involving a pheasant, and one genuine with something rushing out of the left hand side of the frame, but not really much else, and sometimes the performances and dialogue are really quite bad. Two of the girls go outside to have a chat about boyfriends and the acting is embarrassing, even if Hayley Derryberry and [especially] Jessica Sonneborn sure are nice to look at.
Eventually things do pick up a bit and the plot, which I won’t go into detail about, goes down different pathways than one might expect, but the film becomes one of those pictures where the budget was just too low for a convincing realisation of the script. The occasional scene, like a brief dream-within-a-dream sequence with two more good jump-scares, does show that director Paul J. Porter, who also co-wrote the screenplay with star Hayley Derryberry, has some talent, while the cinematography by Jonathon Henry ranges from really impressive to downright shoddy and seems like the work of two or three people, meaning the film doesn’t really have a consistent look despite its retro aimings. Meanwhile the soundtrack is peppered with 80′ style rock but is overused, the music becoming intrusive during some scenes and reducing the tension even more.
Rabid Love is one of those films I wanted to really enjoy, even if it was just on the level of a guilty pleasure, but despite the odd point of interest, mainly in its story, my attention was barely held in places and my finger ended up dangerously close to the fast-forward button. I guess if you really are a die-hard slasher movie fan, especially of the Golden Age of the sub-genre, you may just about enjoy it, and there are occasional glimmers of light which will make me look out for Porter’s next project, but Rabid Love just didn’t cut it for me. Interestingly, the beer featured in the film, Hann’s Town Beer, was created specifically for the film by production designer Lance L. Ziesch and is named after Hanston, Kansas, where most of the movie was shot. The label features the town’s high school colors and elk mascot.
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