One of the macabre fascinations of the "survival horror" genre is to see how far filmmakers will push the moral and ethical sensibilities of the viewer--contrasted against movies where some otherworldly monster is the main adversary (thus clearly defining the bounds of "good" and "evil"), something like "Last House on the Left" is more prone to pushing our buttons because the perpetrators are as flesh-and-blood as any human being. "Rabid Dogs" (aka "Kidnapped") falls nicely into this tradition, and could be the finest variation on the formula next to Wes Craven's landmark. As directed by Mario Bava, the film is a visually stunning and uncomfortably claustrophobic tale of three criminals who commit an early-morning robbery and take three hostages (a female pedestrian, and the father of a sick child) and embark on a road trip wrought with sleaze and violence. While most renowned for his period horror films, Bava brings his own sense of visual flair to the proceedings (note how he films the deserted "farm" like a Gothic castle), contrasting panoramic shots of open, seemingly empty highways and countrysides with invasive, cramped close-ups of the criminals and hostages (in a way, we begin to also feel like captives in a hot car). Bava is surprisingly fearless in his portrayal of amorality, but the script actually develops both victim and victimized beyond the usual genre predictability--by the time we reach the film's closing twist, "Rabid Dogs" has made a stinging indictment against the greed and violence of the modern world, wrapped up in an unapologetically nihilistic package. It's a good, hard-hitting genre piece that may just make you think a little.
Review of Rabid Dogs
