HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT TWELVE: Bram Stoker's Burial of The Rats (1995)

I'm still resorting to The Ratapalooza Randomizer...and boy, did I end up with a strange one.  Our feature for today is a Roger Corman produced oddity--part of the 'Roger Corman Presents' film package the legend made for Showtime over the course of two years in the 90's--called Bram Stoker's Burial of The Rats.

I would not expect fidelity to the source material.

Bram Stoker (Kevin Alber) is traveling with his father when they are waylaid by some hooded figures.  To protect his father, Bram kills one of the figures and is kidnapped by the survivors.  He is taken to a mysterious mansion lorded over by The Queen of Vermin (Adrienne Barbeau) and her...cult of lingerie clad warrior women?  One of the warrior women, Madeleine (Maria Ford, who was something of a low-budget scream queen in the 90's) spares Bram from an elaborate death involving a pendulum and a pit full of rats and protects him from the intention of the Queen and her faithful lackey Anna (Olga Kabo)...and before long, Bram insinuates himself into this cult of ratwomen with an eye towards reuniting himself with his father.

This year I have watched some seriously befuddling shit, but this may take the cake.  It's obvious that Corman thinks he knew what Showtime wanted, and is very upfront with the true intention of this film within five minutes, where we're witness to the funeral of Madelaine's fallen sister that includes topless color-coded dancers.  Rats do play a part in this--nineteen, to be exact, even though Corman was promised fifty according to Adrienne Barbeau's  autobiography There Are Worse Things I Could Do (which is a very lightweight but nonetheless fun read), and they do eat people to justify the title.  But they are a miniscule portion of this film, which seems to be a softcore porn version of a Victorian adventure romp, which is in turn just a breast delivery system.

Nobody is trying here.  I suspect this was cooked up to give Showtime it's own version of Cinemax After Dark.  Even though this is supposed to be taking place in 1870, no one--certainly not the American leads, and certainly not the raft of Russian actors (the film was made in Moscow) who make up the bulk of the cast--bothers acting as if they're in anything other than a modern film.  The script, by the sex monster author who caused me to leave the HWA back in the 90's and Tara McCann, is written in idiomatic English.  There's lots of swordfighting, but it's extremely inept, and some not-very-convincing special effects.  The direction by Dan Golden, who specialized in 'erotic thrillers' is purely by the numbers.  Adrienne Barbeau is the only one who seems to realize this is a piece of crap and plays to the rafters.  Add in a couple of puzzling decisions (Why hire low budget horror icon Linnea Quigley just to put her into background shots and cutaways?  Wouldn't she have brought a fun interpretation to Anna?) and you have a boring mess that's overlong even at its eighty-eight minute running time.

Once again, we have a bad film that commits the sin of being boring.  The 2nd iteration of New Horizons--Corman's sixth production company!--knew what it was at that point...utilizing grindhouse cinema tropes to justify copious amounts of bare breast and maybe a tiny bit of full frontal nudity (a prostitute does run down the stairs naked midway through the film).  I was looking at the clock constantly, and felt nothing the whole time I watched it.  I never lost sight of the fact that this was a cynical attempt to woo away people from Cinemax who thought those films had too much plot to get in the way of the breasts.  Obviously, I do not recommend it, except as a signpost in Roger Corman's career, as this led to his long-standing relationship with veneral disease sounding basic cable station SyFy.

Tomorrow, I feel I need to get out of this country, so I overruled the Ratapalooza Randomizer and have decided to take a look at the Korean 2015 period horror The Piper.  Hopefully I will not be disappointed by this one.  

There are presently nine 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.  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.