Rats: Night of Terror (1986)

People are voting emotionally.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This film has some great elements such as some awesome 80's synth music, ridiculous over the top 80's outfits and character names (Lucifer, Taurus, Video). It does also contain some cringeworthy elements such as animal abuse which is common in foreign movies from as recent as the 90's. One moment you have characters talking about the indecency of humanity, and saying how rats don't deserve the punishment they get, and the next has the actors kicking live rats like footballs and beaming them with beer mugs. The acting, lines, and delivery bridges well into the absurdly bad, with one "joke" sticking out to me in particular. The character Lucifer is stuck in his sleeping bag and having trouble with the zipper, Taurus unzips it, and makes a comment about calmness being the virtue of a leader... then suddenly everyone is bursting out laughing like its the funniest thing they ever heard. Even Taurus who delivered the line is doing full belly wide mouth open head back laughter. Maybe you have to be in a rat filled apocalypse to understand the joke...

As cheesy, cruddy Italian post-apocalypse cinema goes, "Rats: Night of Terror" is constantly amusing and certainly NOT ever boring. It has enough uproarious moments to make it quite an acceptable diversion, and some brilliant lines (ex. "I'm gonna warm their whiskers!"). The story (credited to director Bruno Mattei) deals with a roving gang that comes upon an abandoned complex where they get inundated with rats that are more voracious, aggressive, and intelligent than normal. In order to ensure their own survival, they determine to make it an unsafe world for the rodent population. Good fun all the way for its decently paced 97 minutes, it seems to suggest that the best way to survive a post-apocalypse future is to go underground. Luigi Ceccarelli's electronic score is a hoot to listen to, just like much of the dialogue. The dubbing and vocal performances, as is often the case for this sort of thing, are just hysterical, with the on screen performers gamely going with the flow of this material. It's extremely cool to note that leading actor Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, billed as Richard Raymond for English language prints, is the man behind the infamous "worm eye" zombie from Lucio Fulci's "Zombi 2". Besides Dell'Acqua, people will also recognize Geretta Geretta (billed as Janna Ryann) from Lamberto Bava's "Demoni". The funniest performance comes from Henry Luciani as Duke, what with his facial expressions. Wonderful gags include a rat emerging from a victim's mouth. The overall mood and feel of "Rats: Night of Terror" is a great study in decay and despair, and pretty much everybody in this cast of characters is fair game for a hideous demise. And the movie rewards all viewers who stick it out to the end with a priceless final revelation they won't soon forget. Don't listen to the naysayers...at least give this goofy bit of Euro escapism a chance. It may be of the endearingly bad kind of experience, but for this viewer it wasn't so bad it was good. It was so bad it was a RIOT. Eight out of 10.

In a post-apocalyptic setting, a gang of nomads enter an abandoned building only to discover it inhabited by rodents with an insatiable appetite for human flesh. What starts out looking like another tired 'new gladiators' instalment soon emerges as a claustrophobic ten little Indian tale where the characters must battle both one another and the omnipresence of vengeful rats on the warpath. The fearless leader Kurt combats challenges from within, as the incessantly irritable Duke persistently tries to undermine his control over the group, all the while Kurt and his fellow actors are pelted with rats by off camera stage crew.Curiously reminiscent of a stage production, the characters will often gather together in shot and deliver their lines in succession before a distant noise startles them into collective panic. The dialogue is stilted but suits the wooden acting, a weakness that can't be attributed to the dubbing. Full frontal nudity earns the film its R rating, briefly assuming the mantle until the infamous sleeping bag scene (ouch). Amid the dissent and panic, one of the characters (earlier defined as the cerebral thinker and oracle of all knowledge) delivers an epitaph that could apply equally to both the deceased characters he laments, and the film itself when he utters the immortal line "they had such a terrible finish". At least it's finished for them; the audience will have to endure.Make-up effects are confronting at times, though they do often fall short of realism, opting instead for shock value as witnessed by the asinine decapitation scene which resembles an accident in a mannequin factory. And as usual, the poor old rats (no doubt selected for their rare thespian talents), end up being kicked, gassed, barbecued, shot and one even knocked out by a beer tankard. At least they have the last laugh.

A very similar film in tone to Mattei's previous film HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD, RATS also has its fair share of stock footage (nice monument valley flyover in the opening), though the music is actually original.What could have been an interesting concept (much like the later PLANET OF THE APES movies or the game KKND where nuke mutants battle advanced underground dwellers) is totally ruined by the idiotic decision to focus this movie on an assault by killer rats. The whole crux of the film completely relies on the rats to be scary enough to keep up the suspense, but they fail right off the bat. There's nothing scary about them - just the fear of stepping in or accidentally eating their feces.What kills this film even more is Mattei's hands-off directing approach. You can tell the actors were not given any instruction and to just improvise in the many lengthy wide-angle shots of everyone. There's minimal close-ups to heighten drama, and frequent overacting. It's all quite amateurish besides the lighting and music (which is good besides the snooze-inducing main overture). What little gore there is is so badly done, it's not even laughable.Mattei did MUCH better with his far more entertaining (and funnier) action films in the late 80's. His "best" work in horror/sleaze would be the two women-in-prison films he made around the same time as this film. RATS is just boring. A huge bummer. I don't know why Mattei himself considered this his best film... I've seen more of his work than most people (I adore ROBOWAR and STRIKE COMMANDO) but I absolutely loathe this sleep-inducing film.