The Rats
The Rats / Deadly Eyes / Night Eyes (1983)
It’s taken me a few attempts to get to the end of this damn film in the past week because I’ve been having the existence from hell recently and both concentrating on a film and getting to the end of it, well, that’s been a pretty big ask.
But the thing about The Rats is that it was really worth me pushing through to the end of, even if that meant watching the thing multiple times in one week, inching a bit more forward each time. It makes the most of rat rhyming with tat, it features both the Rattus Tattus and Rattus Doggo species of rat, it makes the infamous Talons Of Weng Chiang rat look like the pinnacle of special effects. The final half hour is a puppet and doggo in a fur suit (no, really, they put some dachshunds in fur suits and got them to run around the place) slaughterfest that hurries from one blood splattered scene to another, never once convincing anyone ever that there is anything resembling a rat in the entire film but the blood will spill all the same. If at any point Kevin The Gerbil appeared with a pink bucket (PINK BUCKET!), it would feel like someone injecting an absurd amount of realism all of a sudden in comparison to the rest of it.
Which is fucking fantastic, obviously. This is the stuff I crave. I mean, I’m typing this with Invasion Of The Dinosaurs on in the background and just had a ball watching the T-Rex vs Bronto fight for the millionth time. I cannot ever get enough of this stuff.
I’m not sure why it bothers but there’s an attempt at a student teacher love triangle story in the middle of all the rat things, I’ve never read the book and have no intention of ever doing so so apologies if this is something crucial to the story in Herbert’s writing but here, it serves as both the usual excuse to get some tits on screen and to space out the rat att-acks a little bit and does a pretty poor job of both of these things. Still, I guess it leaves some space for humans to talk to each other inbetween people having their legs gnawed off so it kinda feels like a whole film, sort of, maybe. I don’t really care, I’m here for the not rats.
The Rattus Doggo scenes, with all these woofers bounding around in their little pet costumes are so much fun. Sometimes, someone will be required to shoot a gun at one and the doggo does a little doggo leap into the air in fright and it’s wonderful. The Rattus Tattus scenes (and the film cuts quickly between both of these things to ensure you’re never bored for a moment) are full on “I will throw this rat puppet at you, you catch it and look terrified” scenes, surprisingly few “holding the rat up to the neck” scenes but that’s more than made up for with lingering shots of a rat puppet having a nibble on someone’s leg afterwards. Towards the end, there’s a shot that must be realistically a few seconds long but feels like forever as a rat puppet gnaws slowly on a corpse. It’s so good! So good!
Given the time I’m having of it at the mo, I’ve rarely needed a film like this more. Yeah, there’s a part of me still left wandering how on Peter Molyneux’s green Earth younger me found this thing terrifying but I also have to remember that very little phased me and when it did, it was often implausibly fake-animal related. I dunno. One for therapy, that.
I wholeheartedly recommend giving The Rats a watch. If, for some reason, you don’t fancy all of it, just watch the last half hour or so and enjoy the carnage. You’ll be doing yourself out of some fine rat puppet murders from earlier but it’s a great way to spend half an hour. And if you’re having a miserable week/month/year, well, it cheered me the fuck up no end. Maybe it’ll cheer you up too? Worth a go, imo.