Rats: Night of Terror is a 1984 Italian post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film directed by Bruno Mattei (Shocking Dark; Hell of the Living Dead; et al) and Claudio Fragasso.
Plot:
After a nuclear holocaust in 2015, the survivors are divided between those who live in comfortable underground cities and the “New Primitives” who live in the sunlight. A group of these, composed of men and women of various humanity, comes across a mysterious village.
Despite the presence of numerous horribly mutilated corpses, the adventurers decide to settle in town after discovering a large amount of food, a greenhouse with various fruit trees and a reservoir of drinking water. The following night hundreds and hundreds of hungry genetically mutated rats are ready to attack them, one by one…
Our review:
Can one scene make an otherwise thoroughly useless movie worth seeing? That’s the question that I’m pondering right now as I attempt to write this review of 1984‘s Rats: Night of Terror.
None of the characters are all that memorable and the so-called rats appear to be bored. For the most part, the film wouldn’t even be worth reviewing except for the Scene. After 90 minutes of languid mayhem, Rats: Night of Terror comes up with one scene that manages to be odd, brilliant, and numbingly stupid all at the same time. The Scene simply has to be seen to be believed.
Director Bruno Mattei often said that Rats: Night of Terror was his personal favourite out of the countless exploitation films that he directed. While it’s generally agreed that Mattei was responsible for making some of the worst films in history, I’ve always had a sneaky admiration for him. It’s hard not to love someone who defies the odds while pursuing his dream. Mattei’s dream was to make movies and he never let a thing like budget or talent stand in his way. While Mattei is perhaps best known for taking over the direction of Zombi 3 after Lucio Fulci walked off the set, he was a prolific director who dabbled in every genre. Rats: Night of Terror is his contribution to the post-apocalyptic genre.
For a brief period in the 1980s, Italian exploitation filmmakers moved away from cannibals, Gialli, and zombies and instead concentrated on making movies about post-apocalyptic bikers. For the most part, I’ve never been a huge fan of these Italian versions of The Road. There’s an overwhelming blandness to them. If the underlying goal of Italian exploitation cinema was to make movies that could pass for American studio productions, then the postapocalyptic genre is the closest the Italians came to accomplishing that goal. As opposed to the zombie films or the Gialli, the only thing that was obviously Italian about the majority of these films was George Eastman.
Rats: Night of Terror, strangely enough, does not feature George Eastman. What it does feature is a lot of gerbils. We’re continually told, throughout the movie, that these gerbils are actually rats but no, they’re gerbils and they’re pretty obviously not only gerbils but cute gerbils too!
I’m sure I’m not the only person out there who has a strong phobia of rats. I can still remember when I was twelve years old and visiting my grandad’s farm in Arkansas. I was exploring an old barn with my older sister, Erin. The barn, which already smelled like death, was also full of hay and, within a few minutes of stepping inside, I started to have trouble breathing. I stepped outside, used my inhaler, and leaned up against the barn’s wall. As I caught my breath, I heard a very distinct squeaking coming from inside the wall. I jumped away from the wall, spun around, and realized that I had been resting my head against a small hole. Staring contemptuously at me from inside that hole was a really ticked-off-looking rat. No matter how many times I washed my hair that day (and, believe me, I washed and rewashed it a lot), I could not stop imagining the feeling of germ-ridden rodents running across the back of my head.
Ever since that day, whenever I’ve seen a rat in a movie (or, God forbid, real life), I’ve remembered that feeling and it still makes me shudder. It’s a reminder that, in the end, we’re all going to end up being devoured by the same scavengers.
Yes, Rats: Night of Terror has a lot going against it. The characters are boring, the rats are gerbils, and the director is Bruno Mattei. It would be easy to dismiss this film if not for the Scene. Oh, how I wish I could tell you something about the Scene without giving the whole thing away. I wish there was some way I could safely expand on just how weird and silly and oddly wonderful the Scene is.
If you haven’t seen the film, I’ll give you a clue about the Scene. It happens at the end of the movie. It makes absolutely no sense and it is so extremely odd that it actually makes you wonder if maybe the entire film was meant to be somehow satiric. What’s especially odd is that most viewers usually guess what the Scene is going to be halfway through the film before then thinking, “No, no way. There’s no way that’s going to happen.”
So, to return to the original question, can one scene make an entire film worth seeing? In the case of Rats: Night of Terror, the answer is yes.
Lisa Marie Bowman, guest reviewer via Through the Shattered Lens
Other reviews:
“The repetitive use of Luigi Ceccarelli’s ominous synth moans and occasional noodling effectively halts the film’s pacing, in a sense that, it feels like the narrative never actually goes anywhere with any real intent, and that the cast just run around to the sounds of Ceccarelli, in a derelict building, frightening furry critters with fire.” 42nd Street Cinema
” …these rats are about as docile as vermin get; we’re supposed to ignore the fact that production assistants are hurling them at the actors from off-screen. Heads up! The utter lack of interest from the rats and the utter lack of excitement in the plot makes this film a lot less interesting than the premise implies.” Black Horror Movies
“Rats, in fact, comes to resemble a zombie film with fuzzy, squeaking little f*ckers in place of reanimated corpses. The movie’s cheapness keeps it from being scary but also makes it hilariously memorable.” Mike “McBeardo” McFadden, Heavy Metal Movies
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” …it isn’t all bad here, but the good is few and far between. It’s also pretty easy to guess what few redeeming qualities there are: some gratuitous nudity, good gore effects, and a somewhat atmospheric quality that seems to be inherent in most Euro-horror films, no matter how bad they really are. The early, desolate setting actually does give off a nice, creepy, haunted-house and crypt-like vibe.” Oh, the Horror!
“…the rats aren’t even particularly scary – it’s pretty easy at any given moment for the characters to run past them, or brush them away, but in the universe of this movie, it’s par for the course to have eight or ten rats jump on you and then for the leader of your clan to decide the best way to help is to give you a blast from his flame-thrower. I mean, these people are so uncivilized, they have sex in front of each other, revealed after a curious, unexplained sound cue.” When the Dead Walk the Earth
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