A small-town piano teacher is shocked by the arrival of her foster daughter's biological mother, whose young lover soon follows and causes further disruption.

The priest Hagen comes to a small Norwegian village one stormy evening. He brings the tragic news to wife Sigrid Bakken. Her husband and oldest son has drowned during fishing.

Orphan boy and vicar's daughter fall in love but her father is strongly opposed to their relationship.

Four Swedish volunteer soldiers are trapped in Russia. In front of them lies the front with enemy outposts and patrols, behind them the enemy minefields. Hope to return to their own lines decreases each day. Corpses of fallen, "dead of cold and hard as iron", forms the macabre landmarks in the winter landscape. Nearby is a burnt Russian village.

Conventions of civility among family members are severely strained by the very real breakup of the bonds between them. During a few days at a vacation home, Katha, a woman in late middle age, tries to cope with an influx of discontented, disconnected relatives. Her divorced daughter brings all sorts of people to the house, including a woman-friend accompanied by her psychotic son; the grandfather of the house is convinced he is dying and is satisfied by nothing; and some friends drop off their angry teenage son to stay with her, while they go on a long trip abroad. Her friend Emma doesn't help much with keeping a lid on things, as she is a social worker who is fascinated by the awfulness of these situations.

The farm workers at Näs Farm, lead by Hellman, go on strike, demanding that their employer recognize their labor union. But he calls on strike-breakers to perform the farm work. Hellman's son Gunnar is a hothead who easily gets in trouble.

In order to avoid ending up at the poorhouse, five orphaned children tries to make the best of their lives.

Structured as six interconnected episodes, Rabies depicts cruelty as a contagious force: each character, wounded or humiliated, passes that violence on to another. Filmed for Swedish television, Ingmar Bergman’s adaptation of Olle Hedberg’s morality play presents human behavior as a relentless chain of transferred suffering.

Tant is the ruthless ruler of the house and its lodgers.

Ville Bom is the owner of a dance and boxing institute and lives a quite dissolute life.