HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT SEVEN: The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! (1971)

It's the first night where I resorted to The Ratapalooza Randomizer during this year's Horrorfest...and it coughed up The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!, a puzzling, peculiar movie shot in Staten Island yet set in Edwardian England.

Yes, folks.  It's time for me to talk about Andy Milligan.

Milligan is one of those characters who fascinates me.  A figure in the Off-Off Broadway scene of the 50's and 60's, Milligan lived most of his life, and made films, on Staten Island...and his films are either semi-autobiographical sexploitation epics about his homosexuality and practice of BDSM or horror films.  But these weren't the kind of horror films you expect to be made in Staten Island by a long-term resident of that borough;  they're costume dramas invariably set in England that transpose brief moments of 'gore' with the type of mannered dialogue you'd expect in drawing room dramas and costumes and accents straight out of community theater. 

...which brings us to the film, and we'll start off with The Ratapalooza Checklist!

1) IS CANADA SUBBING FOR AMERICA?  As explained above, no.  It's Staten Island subbing for a dilapidated mansion and the nearby 'town' in 1899 England...even though you can briefly see the very modern paved road during the latter sets of scenes.

2) DOES SOMEONE OFFSCREEN THROWS A RAT AT SOMEONE TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE IT'S ATTACKING HIM?  No, although one of the characters throws a rat into another character's face while shouting 'Eat him! Eat him!'

3) ARE THERE CUTE RAT PUPPETS:  No.

4) IS THERE A SPEECH ABOUT HOW BAD-ASS RATS ARE?: Kinda?  There is a speech about why the particular rats in this film are carnivores, but I don't think it counts.

5) IS A CAT VICTIMIZED BY RATS: Nope.

Diana Mooney (Jackie Skarvellis) brings her newly minted husband to her family mansion after spending four years studying medicine.  Her father (Douglas Phair) is feeling poorly, and the hope is that Diana will help him with experiments that will help cure the family of a...genetic...condition.  As the couple try to settle in, they have to contend with Diana's psychotic older daughter Monica (Hope Stansbury), who hates pretty much everything and everyone and has a propensity for collecting short lived pets...like the whole bunch of rats she buys from Mr. Micawber (director Milligan in one of two roles)...

Believe it or not, this guy's not a werewolf...

Now according to Wikipedia (and we all know Wikipedia is 100% accurate, right), Milligan directed the bulk of this film in England, shooting the rat-related second act a year and change later in Staten Island at the behest of producer William Miskin.  I have to call ratscat on that, because nothing in this film feels even the least bit authentic.  The overriding emotion I had watching this film was befuddlement, as I wondered what prompted Milligan to tell stories that he obviously couldn't tell given his resources.  There are endless scenes of characters talking at each other in the kind of mannered way that Milligan thinks is how they talk in Hammer horror films, and the film is pervaded with a near-constant, presumably public domain, music that doesn't quite synch up with what's going on onscreen.  The actors never sound authentic (there's one character who I presume is played by Lillian Frit who I swear got her accent from a high school production of Oliver Twist) and there are moments where I suspect the actors--especially Stansbury--were told to play it as much younger.  It is painful to watch, but the sheer sense of confusion actually dulls the pain and makes it possible to get through it relatively smoothly.

Except for one moment that truly sickened me--and here is where I place a trigger warning advisory and ask you to skip over the next paragraph if you're queasy about animal cruelty.

The part of the film that was shot after the fact exclusively focuses on Hope Stansbury, and you can always tell when you're watching those later scenes by the way the film is overexposed.  They're mainly about the rats that Stansbury's Monica buys and were obviously added to cash in on the success of Willard, to the point where Monica names two of these rats Willard and Ben.  But there's one scene where someone--it's meant to be Monica, as we hear Stansbury singing on the soundtrack, but we only see the hands, so I hope she wasn't on set at the time--tortures and kills a mouse, first with candle wax, then with a knife.  It jarred me right out of the picture, and left a very bad taste in my mouth for the remainder of the viewing experience.  Milligan already died a pauper's death in 1991; if anyone involved in this sick scene is still alive, I hope he's properly ashamed of him/her/itself.  It adds nothing...in truth, it takes a lot away, making what otherwise a goofy film that can be enjoyed for its weirdness of intent pretty contemptable.

It's hard to make a decision on this movie (outside of the scene I cited above).  I don't know if people unfamiliar with Milligan's life would get the surreal disconnect that made it (mostly) enjoyable for me, so I wouldn't recommend it for them.  I might recommend it to people familiar about the fringes of grindhouse--

--No, strike that.  For reasons of extreme animal cruelty, I cannot recommend this to anyone.

Tomorrow our sponsor is my Patreon and part of the Better In The Dark Brain Trust Kelly Logue, and he keeps Ratapalooza easing on down the road by asking me to revisit 1990's Stephen King adaptation Graveyard Shift!  Yes, I mean 'revisit,' as I saw this in Times Square on Halloween night of that year and regretted it...will I regret watching it now?

There are presently eleven 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.