Rabies (2010)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
Country:  Israel
Availability:  DVD

As the very first horror movie to come out of Israel, Rabies (or Kalevet), has been highly anticipated in the horror community since it's extremely successful debut at the Tribeca Film Festival last year. And there's so much shit clogging the horror pipes these days that I get extremely excited for any flick that's well reviewed, so my expectations were high. However, I didn't know this was a slasher movie going in, and with a name like "Rabies" I was expecting some kind of virus movie. Boy, was I wrong. The movie is essentially about various normal people who get stranded in the same area of woods, which we soon discover is littered with active mines, and they all make really poor choices which mostly end with Murder Death Kills.

The movie is actually quite strange at times. It's kind of all over the place and while you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop you're surprised that when it does, it wasn't exactly the shoe you were waiting for.

The actors were all very good and I was pleasantly surprised (as I always am when I make this observation), that the script was very well written with moments of bizarre conversation, humor and heart. There are small side stories that we glimpse of but never explore, and a supposed serial killer who we never actually see kill anyone. And whereas in most horror movies the line is clear between the good guys and the bad guys, here the lines are blurred so it's strange when you're not actually for or against anyone.

The one real complaint that I had with Rabies was that I thought it ended abruptly. I guess I just felt there was still more story to tell and was disappointed by all the unexplained motivations of certain characters.

Still, Rabies was a fun little blood-fest, so grab some friends and a bottle of wine and mock the inexplicable reason for a group of tennis players in uniform to be lost in the woods.

3 out of 5 stars