RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR (1984)
aka Rats – Notte di terrore
Article 4417 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-9-2014
Directed by Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso
Featuring Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, Geretta Geretta, Massimo Vanni
Country: Italy / France
What it is: Killer animals

After the apocalypse, a gang of land-dwelling humans is trapped and terrorized by killer rats.

So, is it a “nature gone wild” horror movie with an unusual setting? Or is it a ROAD WARRIOR variation with a totally different plot? Actually, I prefer to see it in a slightly different way – it’s a version of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD with rats instead of zombies and taking place in the future rather than the present, full of badly-dubbed laugh-inducing dialogue and lots of gross-out effects. This, combined with idiotic behavior on the part of the most of the characters, make it very hard to take the movie seriously, but at least it makes the jump to entertainingly awful rather than excruciatingly awful (except for the scenes where people go into screaming fits, which are annoying). As tempted as I am to dismiss it with a shake of my head, I have to admit that it’s demented movies like this one that help make this cinematic journey I’m taking so interesting.