The Cavalcade of Rats Rolls On! Today's sponsor is a man I am proud to call my Canadian Brother, the man who has kept up a weekly schedule on his podcast
Dread Media for almost fifteen years now, the redoubtable Heavy Metal Monster Maestro
Des Reddick! New episodes of
Dread Media (which sometimes features yours truly as a co-host) can be found over at
the Earth-2.net Podcast Network!
Des has a tradition of choosing films from other nations to give me for Halloween Horrorfest, and he doesn't disappoint this year just because it's Ratapalooza...so this time out he's presented me with Bruno Mattei's vision of a rodent-fueled future, 1984's Rats: Night of Terror!
Apparently, the world was decimated by nuclear war in 2015, driving humanity underground. In 250 A.B. (After The Bomb), a group of...scavengers?...that look like they're auditioning for a post-apocalyptic musical based on
Purple Rain venture onto the surface and come across an abandoned town. There they find food that they promptly waste by throwing around, evidence of a scientific facility and a bunch of very dead, chewed up corpses. The group spends the night...and are quickly attacked by rats. Lots and lots of rats.
Hungry rats
Three films into Ratapalooza, and I'm beginning to formulate a Rat Film Checklist. For example, if you include last year's
Food Of The Gods, this is the third film where there is a specific rat that is made out to be the ring leader. This is the third film where you get a monologue about how bad-ass rats are. Surprisingly, this is only the first film where it appears that a stagehand throws a rat at a character and the first one that features the 'shower of rats' trope. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure this is the only film where I'll see a rat riding the head of a poor suck doing a fire stunt. Seriously, that rat deserves a Pet Academy Award for that.
I know a lot of people remember this film fondly (Des is not the only one to request this movie; he just happened to be the first), and the only reason I can think of is how 80's it is. I am always fascinated by how most science fiction-y films set in the future tell us more about the time they're made than the time they're set in. One has to only look at the wardrobe our cast sports to know what decade we're in--even our leader Kurt (Octaviano Dell'Acqua), who is obviously meant to evoke Kurt Russell in
The Thing with his shaggy hair and flame thrower sports a long red cravat in addition to his black leather jacket. Some of the other characters seem to have been dressed in whatever was on hand in the studio; I particular liked Duke (Henry Luciani) who sports what seems to be a Union Army jacket festooned with police badges and Deus (Fausto Lombardi) who looks like what would happen if the WWE had a Hare Krisna themed wrestler. And then there's Lilith (Moune Duvivier), who wears what looks like a sexy toreador outfit complete with a sword and, in the English translation, sports a Southern accent. And I'm not going to mention the guy who I swear is wearing the same top Tegan wore in her last season as a Doctor Who companion.
You're prolly wondering why I'm spending so much time talking about wardrobe in this review. It's because
Rats: Night of Terror...well, it isn't very good. In fact, it is the worst kind of not-very-good movie in that it's
boring. Bruno Mattei is usually pretty vigorous, especially when it comes to gore and craziness, and there's not a lot there save for the final twist. There are long, long stretches of time where all we've got is guys yelling at each other that make the film feel longer than its ninety minutes. And when Mattei resorts to three 'rats-escape-from-inside-a-corpse' gag, it just wore on me (although I will admit the exploding rats-escape-from-inside-a-corpse' gag was at least lively). Yeah, its got that signature Italian actor overacting, but that only goes so far. By the time I got to the Expository Tape Message well into Act Three--something that maybe Mattei should've put in Act Two--I was thoroughly checked out. I had seen enough rats huddled together in a mass with silly synth music plays trying to convince me this is scary that it wasn't affecting me anymore. Well, to be fair, it wasn't affecting me at first.
Yeah, it's brief and it's cheesy, but it's also lacking in anything that would make it fun. I cannot recommend this one, guys.
Ratapalooza Gets Schooled tomorrow when our sponsor, the noted author Nicholas Kauffman (his new novel The Hungry Earth is out now!) goes back to the same ground he trod last year to present me with the way-too-many-years-later sequel to Bert I. Gordon's classic, Gnaw: Food of The Gods II. It's all about the rats this go-round, but at least we have Mary Lou Maloney herself, the ever-lovely Lisa Schrage as the female lead! Nicholas will be representing The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
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. 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment