Italian trashola from 1983 that sees sleaze maven Bruno Mattei,
a.k.a. Vincent Dawn, take on the popular post-nuke genre with a dash of
WILLARD (in the form of mutant rats). It’s every bit as ridiculous as it
sounds.
The Package
This is apparently Bruno Mattei’s own favorite of all
his films. Other Mattai atrocities include the Nazi-sploitation fest
S.S. GIRLS, the nunsploitation epic THE OTHER HELL and the zombie
splatter-thon HELL OF
THE LIVING DEAD. RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR (RATS--NOTTE DI
TERRORE) was released in the midst of the Italian MAD MAX rip-off boom
(see 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, AFTER THE FAL OF NEW YORK, THE NEW
BARBARIANS, etc). It was apparently intended as a far grander futuristic
epic than the severely scaled-down gorefest that resulted--which, Mattei
claims, was inspired by NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, with rats in place of
zombies.
The Story
This story occurs over the course of a single night in
the year 225 A.B. (“After the Bomb”). A gang of wandering refugees break
into a long-abandoned research laboratory containing purified water and
lots of food, but also countless rats. Several chewed-up corpses are
discovered, apparently killed in a past ambush. The truth, however, is
far more horrific, as two members of the group discover when several of
the ever-present rats attack and devour them in the laboratory basement!
The next attack occurs a couple floors up, where a rat
crawls into a woman’s sleeping bag and slithers up her vagina. Rats also
chew through the tires of the protagonists’ vehicles, effectively
trapping them.
The rats, it seems, have become abnormally intelligent
due to the experiments of the laboratory’s overseers. Now the steadily
dwindling human protagonists, who are becoming increasingly rat-like
themselves, must somehow survive the constant rat attacks--and each
other!
The Direction
If you’re at all familiar with Italian sleaze movies of
the 1980s you’ll know what to expect from this film, which features
nearly every annoying Italian movie convention of the time: the
photography is tacky, the atmosphere wildly overwrought and the acting
thoroughly lackluster (not that the script gives the performers a whole
lot to work with). There’s a fair amount of gratuitous female nudity
(for which I’m not complaining), cute-rate special effects (with rats
portrayed by rubber toys on a conveyor belt!) and laughable English
dubbing.
This means unforgiving or hyper-critical viewers will
want to steer clear, but those who can appreciate a good trash fest will
be sated. What Bruno Mattei lacks in talent he more than makes up for in
endearingly ham-fisted sincerity and a cheerful willingness to push his
material over the top. There are other killer rodent movies, certainly,
but this is the only one to feature rats literally exploding out of a
dead man’s torso and emerging from the mouth of a severed head. This
film, in short, fully earns its bad movie stripes, unlike so much of
today’s self-aware “cult” cinema.
Vital Statistics
RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR (RATS--NOTTE DI TERRORE)
Beatrice Film S.R.L.-Roma/Imp.Ex.Ci.-Nizza
Director: “Vincent Dawn” (Bruno Mattei)
Producer: Jacques Leitienne
Screenplay: Claudio Fragasso, Bruno Mattai, Herve Piccini
Cinematography: Franco Delli Colli, Henry Frogers
Editing: Gilbert Kiroine
Cast: Richard Raymond, Janna Ryan, Alex McBride, Richard Cross, Ann
Gisel Glass, Christoph Bretner, Tony Lombardo, Henry Luciani, Ciny
Leadbetter, Chris Fremont, Moune Duvivier
