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Title: Rats - Night of Terror (2002) |
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Review of Rats - Night of Terror
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Comments for Rats - Night of Terror
- Posted on 2007-12-11
Night of the Living Rats
Set in the year 215 A.B. (after the bomb), "Rats" is the story of a group of motorcycle riding nomads who travel around scavenging the leftover cities of the world that have become ghost towns. Most humans never resurfaced after going underground to avoid the radiation all those years before, but the biker gang soon discovers that the humans moving underground forced the world's rat population above ground, and it is they who now hold power over us!
Putting his own spin on Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," famed European schlock-horror director Bruno Mattei replaces zombies with rats and takes us into the future to a world turned upside down. If that sounds intriguing to you, you may want to give this one a look, but be prepared for the worst. Everything about this one is pretty bad (and kinda gross) except for the twist ending and some of the general concept itself. It's all in good fun if you enjoy bad movies though, but one sort of feels this would have been more effective as part of an anthology since it really doesn't need to be feature length.
I recommend opting for the double feature DVD that includes "Hell of the Living Dead" and the same extra features which are: "Hell Rats of the Living Dead" (an interview with director Bruno Mattei), a Bruno Mattei bio, and a theatrical trailer. Though, that one is double-sided and may be troublesome for finicky DVD players.
Score: 3
- Posted on 2005-09-24
"Well, I don't like this at all...computers and corpses are a bad mixture."
I really had little idea the cinematic pain train I was boarding as I watched Rats - Night of Terror (1983) aka Rats - Notte di terrore last night. Oh sure, I read the reviews and what not, but to really get a true understanding of the film's utterly rotten essence, you must watch it, and experience it, for yourself. I've seen a hell of a lot of bad movies in my time, but I have to say, this fetid, moldering bit if Italian produced flotsam buried the needle on my Suck-O-Meter, something that hasn't happened since I watched Red Serpent (2002), with Michael Paré and Roy Scheider. Written and directed by Bruno Mattei, the man who gave us such wonders as S.S. Extermination Love Camp (1977) and the ode to the usage of stock footage Hell of the Living Dead (1980), the film features Ottaviano Dell'Acqua (Zombi 3), Geretta Geretta (Demons), Massimo Vanni (Escape from the Bronx), Ann-Gisel Glass (Deadly Eyes), Henry Luciani, and Fausto Lombardi (Don't Look in the Attic).
The film started off well enough, with some displayed text telling us about how a great, nuclear holocaust drove those humans left alive under the ground, where they developed sophisticated societies. After some years, some (fool) hearty individuals decided on returning to the surface, to enjoy the toxic wonderment I suppose, and became viewed as primitives by those who remained down below. The story picks up in the year 225 A.B. (After the Bomb) as we see a motorcycle gang tooling around the wasteland (looks like an old rock quarry to me). As I was wondering just where in the heck they got the gas to run their machines, they boogie on into a dilapidated city, deciding this might be a good place to set up camp...and this is about the time the, as the boys from MST3k would say, the `deep hurting' began as the characters started to actually talk. Anyway, the find a deserted research facility, complete with canned food, plants (fresh vegetables and fruit), and fresh water, littered with gnawed on corpses...well, it's not completely deserted, as there's the rats, and plenty of them. They clear out the dead bodies, move into their new digs, and soon enough the mutated, furry, super rodents begin picking off the gang one by one. Not only that, but the verminous mongrels have eaten up the tires on the vehicles, preventing those who haven't become all ate up from leaving. As tensions rise, more annoying characters die (thankfully), and leadership of the gang comes into question, but there's little time for debate as the hairy horde begin their relentless onslaught (apparently grungy bikers are good eatin'...who knew?) challenging man's long standing position on the top of the food chain...
Seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, perhaps, but essentially what I did was put a nice sheen on a stanky (stank goes well beyond stink) turd, and believe me, that was not an easy task...really, the absolute worst aspect of this film is the writing. Here's an example, once the rats begin killing off the characters, one woman spits out this little gem of brilliance, "The idea of being killed right now really frightens me." And here's another, as the leader of the gang prepares to flash fry a whole mess of rats with his flamethrower, "I'm going to warm their whiskers." Oh criminey...the film is filled with completely unnatural dialog, pointless interactions, accompanied by atrocious, awe inspiringly overblown performances. I swear, the actors chewed up more scenery than the rats themselves. As far as the characters go, a more irritating bunch you'll rarely see. One can't help but root for the voracious rodentia. And get the names of some of these a-holes...Duke, Video, Lucifer, Chocolate...there was one character that was particularly loathsome in that of Myrna, a leather clad woman who spent a great deal of time losing her marbles and screeching incoherently throughout the film. Here's another juicy line of idiocy, as one mook finds a bottle of booze and begins sucking it down..."Hey, what an incredible drink!"...yeah, drink up boyo, as your time is gonna come. I think the absolute worst scene for me was near the beginning, when the group found all the food and began celebrating by dumping sugar and flour all over each other, dancing about like mental deficients. The black woman, named Chocolate (nice), ends up covered in flour, and starts shouting how she's white, while doing a very loose interpretation of an Irish jig. The effects throughout weren't too bad, but mostly featured people off screen either throwing, or dumping rats onto the performers. There were a few gruesome bits, like the rat in the sleeping bag gag, and the exploding corpse piñata filled with rodents, so fans of the visceral will find something to enjoy. Now I've read where some think the awful aspects of the film are intentional in a comedic sense, and even the back of the DVD case makes statements along these lines, but I honestly believe the original intent was to try and make a serious, scary film, and once the finished product was out there, everyone assumed it to be a joke, so Mattei went along with this rather than cop to the fact he's a lousy writer....hell, that's what I would have done, if I were in his Italian loafers...I suppose it doesn't make a difference one way or another, as if you're an aficionado of rotten, sleazy, awful cinema, this one's right up your alley. As far as the directing, apparently Mattei, who started working on this film right after completing a project with Jess Franco, keeps things moving along, disjointedly, but seems to have thankfully taken few cues from that Spanish hack (seriously, ever seen Oasis of the Zombies? If so, you know what I'm talking about). Hey, at least there's a decent nekkid chick in the movie, which is nearly spoiled by a nekkid man and the appearance of his wang dang doodle. As far as the ending, I did see it coming, and despite the fact it was completely ridiculous, it was suitable for this story.
Anchor Bay Entertainment provides on this DVD a very good-looking, widescreen (1.85:1) anamorphic print, along with mediocre Dolby Digital 2.0 audio (some of it was really soft, in terms of the dialog, but perhaps that was for the best given the script). Special features include a lengthy theatrical trailer, a Bruno Mattei bio, an interview with Mattei titled `Hell Rats of the Living Dead' (9 minutes), and a 5X7 reproduction of original poster art included on an insert, the flipside listing the chapter stops.
Cookieman108
By the way, I think plenty of rats were harmed in the making of this film...also, if you're interested in buying this DVD, I'd suggest doing what I did and buying the Anchor Bay DVD Fright Pack: Man's Worst Friends, which features six films including Parasite (1982), Lucio Fulci's The Black Cat (1989), Slugs: The Movie (1988), Bruno Mattei's Rats: Night of Terror (1984), Zoltan, Hound of Dracula (1978), and Dario Argento's The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971). It's available here on the Amazon website, at a really good price, and cheaper than buying the individual releases.
Score: 2
- Posted on 2005-06-19
delightful dubbed blood daubed ratty romp!
Was that a pashmina scarf Kirk was wearing? 'Cause if you look, its really clean and new looking for post apocalyptic scavengers. Not gonna worry about where they get the gas for the bikes.. but I am wondering about the hairspray keeping those 80s big hair dos in place.
Lilith had a great body for someone living by their wits (no scars, marks, etc.), btw. What was with her 'Southern' dubbed accent? Is the original italian done in a 'country' accent? Why would they even have different accents? Lucifer had a pretty good bod too, with a brief moment of side male nudity. I was surprised as its so *shocking* in the US.
If you look closely at dead lilith's pupils, they constrict and dilate as the lights play across her face.
I felt sorry for the painted guinea pigs (Mattei said in the interview I think) as they were apparantly thrown by the boxful through windows, down chimneys, or up at actors as they 'attacked' etc. (No disclaimer about no animals harmed yada yada yada.)
Funny scenes? When they are running from a 'horde' of oncoming rats, they have a dim blurry closeup of what seems to be a treadmill with plastic doll heads? rat heads? rolling toward them, then cut back to 5 or 6 six rats milling around ignoring the actor slashing at them with a burning torch yelling "back! back!". Also, when the rats are 'breaking down' the door, as if with a battering ram (or many tiny little ones, or as it may be lilith's corpse), camera cuts to 'rats' calmly milling around in front of said door.
Less blood and gore than Mattei's zombie movies.
Score: 4
- Posted on 2005-05-19
Terrible, but still fun
OK, this movie stinks!
Now that we have cleared that up, let's take a look at why this movie should be watched.
Our story is about a post-apocalyptic world, in which the human race is forced to live undewrground; in order to avoid contact with the radation that has killed life. As time goes on, two groups of survivors formed and did not get along. So, group 1 up and left and made for the Earth's surface again.
This is where our movie starts. The group is a bunch of bikers and look like they came straight out of LA, CA 1980. As they are settling in, the discover that there is some sort of ultra-smart, ultra-fast, ultra-carnivous species of Rats on Earth and there are large numbers of them.
Very cheesey and not worth more that $9.50 or $10, but definatly worth watching.
And, to all those weiners about these being real rats, get over it! There is this perfectly legal profession in the UNited States that I'm sure you would call for assistance if you had a rat problem.....We call them exterminators.....what's the difference??
Score: 2 - Posted on 2004-01-04
Guaranteed to make you question your sanity
Thrill to the sight of dozens of helpless mice being dumped on flailing Italian "actors"! Gawp in amazement at classic rejoinders like "This machine could use a kick in the b**s!"
and "Computers and corpses are not a good mixture". Indeed! Stare in numb confusion at the oddly-coutured post-nuke biker gang, which gang inludes members like Duke, who looks like he was booted off the Sgt. Pepper album cover; and Chocolate, who appears to have been the model for the Auntie Entity character from "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome"! Marvel at the profoundly unconvincing rat dolls that bob up and down in unison and look like they were crafted by an unclever third grader! Wonder at dubbing so atrocious it will make your head hurt for days! Simply put: Italo-sleaze nirvana.
Score: 5