As a debut it certainly shows a great deal of promise so it would be unfair to judge too harshly, but Rabies AKA Kalevet isn’t exactly top-drawer horror even making allowances for the low budget.
Four friends are driving to play a doubles tennis match and get lost in a nature reserve en route. There’s also a park ranger and his girlfriend, his Alsatian, an eloping brother and sister, and a serial killer setting traps for the assembled victims. But the madman isn’t all they need to look out for…
For reasons I won’t spoil the film takes a highly unusual direction when it comes to the murders, but it’s one audiences will only become aware of gradually.
The plot is wildly unpredictable within the expected parameters. The deaths are sudden and almost always unexpected. At one point it made me jump the hardest I can ever remember in a cinema – and I don’t jump easily.
The performances are unremarkable but the cast are a likeable enough bunch, which helps in the three genuinely heartfelt scenes. Quiet, honest moments of the kind very rarely seen in slasher films. While I’d hesitate to call it a comedy as such, there is also a deep vein of humour – usually very black, but not exclusively – running through the film, and all of it works
But for most of the runtime it doesn’t fully engage. While there is one very uncomfortable moment early on, there is literally no tension to speak of until a brief race against the clock in the final minutes (and without dismissing it – in fact it’s one of the film’s best moments – that scene is incidental to the main thrust of the plot.) The shock tactics do work, but until they occur it all seems to play out at the same pitch. The budget limitations show through occasionally with some shonky editing, but more fatally for a film soaked in blood the colour isn’t right. No matter what it looked like on set, on the screen it’s undeniably purple which can’t help but frequently take the viewer out of the moment.
Debuting writer-directors Navot Papushado and Aharon Keshales have crafted something decent here, and with a few more resources at their disposal will undoubtedly be ones to watch. It’s an unusual entry, and in a market flooded with cookie-cutter cheapies, it’s refreshing to see something so left-field.
Directors: Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
Writers: Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
Stars: Lior Ashkenazi, Danny Gev, Ania Bukstein
Runtime: 90 min
Country: Israel
Film Rating: 
