Trivia / Rabid

• Bilingual Bonus: During the car attack, LaPointe audibly shouts "tabarnak", an (in)famous Quebecois swear word.
• Celebrity Paradox:
  • The porno Rose (Marilyn Chambers) watches is Resurrection of Eve, starring...Marilyn Chambers.
  • The song that plays on the radio in Hart's workshop is "Benihana", performed by...Marilyn Chambers.
• Playing Against Type: Adult film actress Marilyn Chambers in a rare mainstream role. The film was part of a concerted by Chambers to crossover into mainstream acting, which included a never-produced Nicholas Ray venture titled City Blues and auditions for leading roles in Goin South and Hardcore. Though Chambers never achieved the mainstream success she craved, she did find a successful career in off-Broadway theatre while continuing to perform in pornographic films.
• Fake Nationality: American actors Marilyn Chambers and Joe Silver portray Montreal natives, while Canadian actor Howard Ryshpan plays an American expat.
• Same Language Dub: Many of the extras and bit players were dubbed with neutral, North American accents, due to executive producer Roger Corman believing that American audiences would find their Quebecois accents too alienating.
• Spiritual Successor: To David Cronenberg's previous film Shivers (1975). Both involve a plague that turns its victims into zombie-like creatures, whose Patient Zero is an attractive young woman, whose climax involves the infection spreading throughout the population of a metropolitan area, the death of the main character, and a Downer Ending in which any hope for a cure is lost through haphazard circumstance. Both films are filmed and set in Montreal, Quebec, and share many of the same cast and crew.
• What Could Have Been: David Cronenberg wanted to cast Sissy Spacek in the lead role, but was shot down by studio executive due to her thick Texan accent.
• Write What You Know: The motorcycle Hart restores in his garage is David Cronenberg's very own 750cc Norton Commando. Cronenberg is a noted motorcycle enthusiast.

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