Of all the Mario Bava movies French producer-turned-director Éric Hannezo could have remade, 1974’s seldom-seen Rabid Dogs could be the most unlikely. Not only does the exotic, genre-smashing allure of something like Kill, Baby . . . Kill! (1960) or Black Sunday (1966) seem infinitely more appealing, Rabid Dogs, which came late in Bava’s career and wasn’t even released until 20 years after his death, is a comparatively stolid effort, full of nihilistic energy and arbitrary violence and almost completely devoid of the director’s trademark verve. If Bava ever made a full-bore exploitation film, Rabid Dogs is the one, but its lack of imagination gives grindhouse fare a bad rap. This new version could have potentially filled in those cynical spaces with a livelier, more adventurous air—less remake and more revision, something closer to vintage Bava. Instead, Hannezo essentially takes a knee, delivering a simple gross-out thriller tightly wrapped in the original’s misanthropy and demented psychology.
The film is among a recent slate of foreign offerings that aspire less to cinema and more to serialized American cable television. Some shots, including a wide-angle standoff between cops and robbers standing on a lonely highway, look like something you’d see in an episode of Breaking Bad. A soundtrack full of English-language pop music, including the same cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” that famously appeared in the Social Network trailer, further removes Rabid Dogs from its Eurotrash roots. That said, the original version is an aggressively political late-period oddity that is perhaps the director’s least typical film. Bava’s Rabid Dogs considers the lingering effects of fascism on Italian society, ultimately at the expense of the story’s sensationalistic appeal; Hannezo’s considers little more than the cultural impact of AMC dramas, let alone fascism in the 21st century or the enduring appeal of Bava’s phantasmagoric approach to cinematic form. (An early heist sequence, complete with police standoffs and dead civilians, strives for the former, but as an elaborate metaphor and sprawling action scene, it’s pretty incoherent.) Both films are essentially missed opportunities, but one doesn’t cancel out the other—instead, they form a sort of feedback loop that reminds audiences of the better movies they could be watching.
The remake of Rabid Dogs often feels like Italian genre cinema filtered through the New French Extremity. The story more or less follows the original. A group of Parisian bank robbers botch a heist and are forced to abduct a lingerie saleswoman (Virginie Ledoyen) and a protective father (Lambert Wilson). The robbers flee with their hostages to the countryside, resulting in a dysfunctional and increasingly hostile road trip, and the mostly handheld camerawork and often clinical depiction of violence bears the mark of Xavier Gens and Alexandre Aja. Unlike those directors, however, Hannezo is less interested in the individual effects of violence than in its visceral nature. The most intense and gruesome moments set the stage for bruised skin and bleeding orifices, heightened by a forceful sound design that gives each punch, blast and smash the greatest impact. With a brooding synth score that knowingly evokes John Carpenter and Goblin, these flourishes achieve their desired effect, making the audience squirm and wince along with the characters.
But the tremendous effort involved is finally at odds with the pulpy story. Instead of grindhouse grime that might inspire a sense of nostalgia despite the obvious contrivance, we get banal formal polish and aesthetic perfection completely at odds with the scuzzy story. Considering the plot isn’t much more than a build up to a pretty decent punchline, Hannezo could have at least had a little more fun with Rabid Dogs. The same could have been said of Bava.
