Are you excited? I'm excited.
Our sponsor for today is one of the two men who inspired me to call for this sub-festival in my monthly festival of the macabre celebrating the true creatures who own my hometown of New York City. Greg Lamberson, the director responsible for bringing you Slime City, Johnny Gruesome and Widow's Point took time out from working on his next film, an action thriller called Guns of Eden to ask me to write about 1983's Of Unknown Origin. Greg is representing the American Diabetes Association.
I saw this originally on VHS, and one scene stuck in my memory....but even that pales to watching the second season of Kids In The Hall and watching a sketch where Mark McKinney goes through the same disintegration the hero goes through.
Bart Hughes (Peter Weller) is an investment banker with a promising career, a gorgeous wife (Shannon Tweed), a cute kid and a grand old house he renovated himself. While his family is on vacation, Bart discovers that a rat has made its home in his beloved house. Bart is not going to stand for a four-footed intruder messing up his precious prized possession, and--goaded by the advice of the super of the building next door (Louis Del Grande)--takes steps to catch the rodent. And when this rat does not prove ammedable to those steps, Bart starts unraveling until his campaign to kill his scaley-skinned nemesis becomes an Ahab-esque obsession.
Now let's get the problematic stuff out of the way--this is one of those films that asks you to believe that New York is in Canada. It's a Canadian film shot in Montreal, and does not at all look like New York, especially the monstrous 'brownstone' that the bulk of the film takes place in. And even if there was a sense of New York City-ness, which there isn't, the geography of the film belies it. I think they're trying to say this takes place in Battery Park and the Financial District...but references to hockey and some of the Canadian accents continue to belie this.
Then there's the rat...
Do not get me wrong a'tall. I genuinely like this film, and will recommend you see it. But there seems to be a disconnect between what George P. Cosmatos wants to make a movie about and what the producers want to make a movie about. The strength of this story lies in Peter Weller's performance and watching this entitled Yuppie asshat disintegrate into lunacy triggered by a simple rat going about its business. I swore before watching this again that we almost never saw the rat, and there's a moment where an argument could be made that the third act is solely in our 'hero's' head.
But in actuality, there is way too much rat in this rat movie. We're presented with rat close-ups--sometimes of actual rats, sometimes of obvious rat puppets--constantly, which result in the film forcing us to accept that there is not only a rat, but a super rat who displays uncanny intelligence in waging war on Weller. Seeing all these rat-shots makes me understand why The Kids In The Hall thought this film ripe for parody. It lessen the ambiguity that Cosmatos could have taken advantage of and forces us to focus on this solely as an urban version of Jaws. It makes the film so literal that when we do get a dream sequence that has Weller's family coming to grim fates because of the rat, it falls thoroughly flat.
Thank God Cosmatos (who I think does not deserve the rep he has garnered because of his work with Stallone as the 80's rolled along) has Weller in his corner. Weller manages to go nuttier and nuttier without becoming
movie nutty. It helps that we have two great character actors in Le Grande and Kieth Knight to play Capital M Movie Nutty to contrast with Weller (leading to one of the best moments of the film, where a concerned Le Grande breaks into Weller's basement, comes across him decimating his work bench with a baseball bat festooned with nails and the jaws from heavy duty mouse traps, stares and promptly leaves as if to say, 'Nope, Not Going There With You.'), but Weller is wholly in command of this story. My favorite moment of the film is not an action sequence or a scare moment, but a long monologue at a dinner party where Weller answers the question 'How's this project coming?' with a litany of facts and figures to justify his belief that rats are The Worst Things Ever. Tweed is surprisingly good, especially since it was obvious she was hired solely to be eye candy, and there are a number of excellent Canadian actors like the great Maury Chaykin in supporting roles.
While this film has come down slightly--very slightly--in my estimation, Of Unknown Origin has quite a bit going for it. If you selectively remove some of the rat shots and approach it as a film about a smug Yuppie getting his comeuppance, it is worth your time and then some.
Tomorrow we reach Ratapalooza Day Two with a film sponsored by my own personal lab rat, The Honeywell Experiment co-host Chris Honeywell. Chris has chosen a remake of one of the great pillars of the rat horror genre, 2003's Willard. Expect me to heap much praise not only on star Crispin Glover but on Glen Morgan and James Wong, who were the real reason The X-Files worked as well as it did.
There are presently fourteen open slots for this year's festival, and if you'd like to be included, there are four ways to get your share of the spotlight:
1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level. Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!
2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi. Suggested donation is $3
3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign. Suggested donation is $10. Please forward your receipt to me as proof.
4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.
It is not necessary to choose a rat-based horror film. However, if you do, I will forward you a special Ratapalooza banner you can display on your website.
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