The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here!

Plot:

A dull Scott with a magical part-time accent marries into a family of crazy people. They’re werewolves, of an extremely lame variety, as the title proclaims. Also there are rats, but they don’t really do anything.

I need a new hobby.

Comments:

There are a few movies in existence so unique they change the way you view not only the craft of filmmaking itself, but the entire world.

This was the last film I rented from the magnificent Simmons Bros. Motion Picture Company, and will forever be so. (Yeesh, it's almost as if the entire place was just bait to pass this gypsy's curse of a movie on to me.) Upon returning 'Rats' I learned that the greatest video store to ever exist has become a casualty of a terrible economy and perhaps more directly, a near total lack of interest from the fine upstanding methamphetamine enthusiast that call New Bedford home.
God, I hate this city.
And yet, some things are to be even more reviled. Take for example the career of the late Andy Milligan, a cannon consisting of sleazy gay porn, sleazier straight porn, and the type of boring, insipid "exploitation" that can only be crafted by the absolute dullest of minds. Andy's original plan was to film 'Rats' as a simple (as in, one assumes, short-bus simple) tale of a family full of werewolves. Being a particularly talentless breed of perverted idiot, Milligan's initial script came up short of the standard 90 minutes, and thus a meaningless narrative cul-de-sac about a disfigured Irish drunk (Gee, thanks for that Andy.) and his man-eating rats was grafted into the production like a necrotic third leg. So what we have is a script that was aimlessly padded, in order to get to the parts with more padding. The resulting lump thus consists of 97% 'two people talking interminably in a brown room', occasionally dotted by bits of extreme distaste. This is your review; this film is about nothing. Nothing  happens in it which is not insulting; not a line is spoken that is not babble, not a scene is shot which is not crap-colored and galumphing, not a character is written that is believable, not a bit of it is more enjoyable than a poke in the eye. There you go folks, I can't write an in-depth study of an empty chamber pot.

Now, the immediate and cliché reflex to a film like 'Rats' would be to lump it into the Ed Woodian 'so bad it's good' category. Such a proposal is so blasphemous it would likely cause Eddy's shade to rise from the dead and strangle the offending rapscallion. This film is so jaw-droppingly moronic, circuitously repetitive, and sore-headedly nasty it is more akin to the madding prophetic reels presented by Nyarlathotep than another simple drive-in cheapy. To illustrate this point, a short list detailing my reactions while viewing this film; 

5 minutes in; Jammed my fingers into window fan, did not realize I was doing this.
14 minutes in; Dropped a small knife from arm's length point first onto my sternum. Again, don't know how or why.
24 minutes; Opportunities for subconscious-induced suicide  exhausted, uncontrollable laughter sets in.
27 minutes; Laughter has become mirthless, hysterical.
31 minutes; Dragged from the room, given a cold compress. I return to the breach only out of sense of duty.

Audience Reaction; Artist's Conception

Thankfully, my maniacal cackling was short-lived. I was kept from choking to death on my own saliva by the fact that in addition to being utterly asinine, 'Rats' is probably the skankiest, most off-putting piece of sh*t I have ever watched. (And once saw the first 20 minutes of 'Ghost Dad'… in a theater!)
I'm not just referring to scenes where a psychotic girl tortures her simian, mentally handicapped sibling, nor simply of the palpable aura of misanthropy that permeates this wretched pustule of a film like cabbage stink on a Boston St. Patty's day. No, I speak of work so artistically impotent and philosophically diseased it believes it must resort to the desecration of life itself in order to raise a shock. Yes, this is one of those films in a small, shameful fraternity that could appropriately be called animal snuff. In this case, a live mouse is tied down, burned with hot wax, and decapitated with a knife.
While the film never again matches this one act of bottomless evil, it is still content to wallow in the stinking mire it has created, petering out to a climax where whatever-the-damn-hell her name is betrays her loving husband to his death, after she's gotten the child she wanted all along from him. (If you felt that deserved a spoiler warning, go soak your head in ice water. You don't want to watch this movie! ) Amazing, the film found the one thing that could actually add to it's unfathomable ass-crapitude; shades of Neil La Bute.
(Milligan was noted to be a rampant misogynist, in addition to being a hugely promiscuous S&M freak. He was also arrested for aiding and abetting a fleeing murderer, and apparently, was a hater of small furry animals. Andy's last days on earth were exceedingly painful, as he wasted away from aids, and if I were unconscionably callous, I would be tempted to speak of karma. )

After viewing this pile, and allowing as much of it as I safely could to sink in. I became fully convinced that I had found worst film ever made. This is not hyperbole, I have plumbed the depths of 'too bad for Mst3k' straight to video dreck, and this is to date, the worst piece of crap I ever bore unfortunate witness to. I promptly went to IMDB (Well, actually the crying jags came first, but let's condense for pacing.) expecting to find about as much info on this film as I would a fuzzy reel of Ukrainian foot porn from the 1940's. (For Dagon's sake, the vhs box art was hand-photocopied!) Imagine my surprise to learn that not only is this film known to the outside world, but there is a small, sad group of devotee's of Milligan's work. Of which, this is considered his… best.

So yes, there a few films so unique they change the way you view everything. I am now afraid to step into a video store ever again.

-7.5!

| Home | Reviews | Faqs | BogBlog | Links | Misc. |