This is news to me; I had no idea a remake of Mario Bava’s cult classic RABID DOGS (aka KIDNAPPED) was in the works, let alone already wrapped. But that’s the news out of New York Comic-Con courtesy of Fangoria, who spoke with one of the film’s stars, Robert Maillet. (You know him as “The Master” in “The Strain” or from flicks like 300 and SHERLOCK HOLMES. Dude is ginormous.)
Maillet spilled the beans that RABID DOGS comes from first-timer Éric Hannezo from a script by Yannick Dahan (co-director of THE HORDE) and Benjamin Rataud. Virginie Ledoyen (THE BEACH) and Lambert Wilson (THE MATRIX RELOADED) also star in the film, which is apparently a “loose” remake of the 1974 thriller, one of Bava’s last.
Here is what Maillet told Fangoria:
You have the bank robbery gone wrong, and the criminals kidnap some hostages, take them in their car and travel cross-country to find a safe haven. Then they come across this village that they try to drive through, but they can’t, because the residents are celebrating the Day of the Bear—which apparently does exist in France somewhere. I’m one of the villagers, and we’re all dressed up in bear costumes; some of us have horns and blackface. These crooks are paranoid, they have guns, they’re dangerous and they want to get through, and we say, ‘No, you wait. [Laughs] You wait around until we celebrate,’ and of course that leads to some confrontations. It was cool, and a lot of fun to shoot.
The basic set-up of Bava’s film is very similar: some nasty crooks kidnap a woman, a man and the man’s small child, and the ensuing road trip is filled with all kinds of psychological terror. Think of it as LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT in a car.
We’ll see what else this remake has in store for us when we learn of a release date.
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