The Riffs III - Die Ratten von Manhattan

It's 225 years past the nuclear holocaust. We are introduced to a band of post-apocalyptic bikers who are amazingly clean, especially their hair, which holds its body even on a long-dead planet. Their clothes are equally well preserved, and pressed. Even their spiked armbands are brand new! Perhaps this is due to the radioactive fallout.

Happening upon a ghost town, our anti-heroes search for supplies, soon realizing that the only living things left other than themselves are rats. Lots of rats. These are no ordinary rodents, since they devour human flesh. Even after several half-eaten corpses are found, the well-groomed bikers refuse to leave town.

When night falls, the real hoopla begins, and there are more rats running around than at Willard's birthday party! The bikers remain oblivious. Nudity ensues. Will any of these imbeciles survive?

RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR is one of those hilarious Italian horror films from the 1980's- the scene in which a rat puppet emerges from a biker's mouth is a particularly enjoyable moment of merriment! It contains the requisite gore, female nekkidness, big-big hair, and unnecessary animal cruelty.

As rubbish cinema goes, this is Grade-A vermin droppings. It's a howl to watch, in spite of the numerous stretches of mind-destroying dullness.

In the end, it's just a good thing that rats love cheeeze...

As cheesy, cruddy Italian post-apocalypse cinema goes, "Rats: Night of Terror" is constantly amusing and certainly NOT ever boring. It has enough uproarious moments to make it quite an acceptable diversion, and some brilliant lines (ex. "I'm gonna warm their whiskers!").

The story (credited to director Bruno Mattei) deals with a roving gang that comes upon an abandoned complex where they get inundated with rats that are more voracious, aggressive, and intelligent than normal. In order to ensure their own survival, they determine to make it an unsafe world for the rodent population.

Good fun all the way for its decently paced 97 minutes, it seems to suggest that the best way to survive a post-apocalypse future is to go underground. Luigi Ceccarelli's electronic score is a hoot to listen to, just like much of the dialogue. The dubbing and vocal performances, as is often the case for this sort of thing, are just hysterical, with the on screen performers gamely going with the flow of this material. It's extremely cool to note that leading actor Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, billed as Richard Raymond for English language prints, is the man behind the infamous "worm eye" zombie from Lucio Fulci's "Zombi 2". Besides Dell'Acqua, people will also recognize Geretta Geretta (billed as Janna Ryann) from Lamberto Bava's "Demoni". The funniest performance comes from Henry Luciani as Duke, what with his facial expressions.

Wonderful gags include a rat emerging from a victims' mouth. The overall mood and feel of "Rats: Night of Terror" is a great study in decay and despair, and pretty much everybody in this cast of characters is fair game for a hideous demise. And the movie rewards all viewers who stick it out to the end with a priceless final revelation they won't soon forget.

Don't listen to the naysayers...at least give this goofy bit of Euro escapism a chance. It may be of the endearingly bad kind of experience, but for this viewer it wasn't so bad it was good. It was so bad it was a RIOT.

Eight out of 10.

"Rats , Night of Terror" is set in 2225 , the nuclear war has devastated the Earth, but the planet has been reborn into two factions, the scavengers living above in the wasteland and the underground society. There some beleaguered survivors of a nuclear holocaust come across a town infested with carnivorous rats, as they struggle with a mutant rodent problem. Searching for water an food they become involved with dangerous and starving beings . In order to survive the long night they use all kinds of objects to kill them, such as flame throwers, sharp tools , assault arms and anything else, however thery are taken down one by one. They attempt to eliminate rats at whatever cost until a surprising and twisted final that turns out to be the best moment of the movie . Mutants of a Nuclear Disaster !

Short budget schlock revolves around some bikers , survivors seeking for shelter , when they find surrounded by a multitude of agressive rats, then gore and blood spelling everywhere . The main issue of the movie results to be the fights with flesh-eating rats , as they get rid some rats , but there are thousands and thousands , only to discover at the end they aren't the usual pesky critters. Stars unknown and usually secondaries actors as Massimo Vani and Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, the latter is a regular Stunt and occassionaly playing bit parts. In some countries this "Rats night of terror" was presented as the third installlment of "Bronx Warriors" 1982 and "Escape from the Bronx" 1983 by E. G. Castellari , though I think of Rats has more relation with "The new barbarians, warriors of the wasteland" 1983 than the previous ones.

It contains an atmospheric cinematography by Franco Delli Colli who photographed several movies of B Italian genres . As well as thrilling musical score by Luigi Ceccarelli. The motion picture was regular but professionally directed by Bruno Mattei who used the pseudonym Vincent Dawn. He often collaborated with Claudio Fragasso who directed the famous Trolls 2 . Mattei was a prolific and botcher Italian writer/director . This hack filmmaker made a lot of films in low budget and all kinds of genres, such as : Action Moviesc : Strike Commando , Terminator 2, Double Target. WIP Women in Prison : Emmanuele in prison, Caged Woman. Peplum : Seven Magnificent gladiators , Caligula and Mesalina. Naziexploitation: Casa privata per le SS. Spaghetti Western : Apache Kid, Scalps. Terror : Hell of the Living Dead, Terror in convent and this Rats night of Terror.

What starts out looking like a poor Mad Max type of film about a post-apocalyptic nightmare ends up a fairly well-done low-budget horror flick about a gang of futuristic nomads attacked by a whole lotta nasty rodents who are hungry for humans. The film unfolds as the rats slowly take control of the situation and trap the humans in ruins of a long-abandoned city, and prepare for the siege. The violence is pretty graphic as the rats seem to kill people from the inside out, and there are some nasty scenes of rats popping out of dead bodies. This one should satisfy horror fans with its violence, somewhat interesting storyline, and a bizarre and unusual ending. Recommended for fans; one of the better killer rat flicks.

This is probably one of the funniest movies I have ever seen in my entire life. Rats is hilariously inept and goofy beyond imagination. First of all you have the scenes of Rats attacking. You can almost spot the stagehands throwing the rats towards the actors... then there's the scenes of horror when the actors discover some evil, nasty mutant rats... who just sits there, doing nothing that would resemble anything remotely scary. And lets not forget the conveyor belt. There is a scene where our bold and poorly dubbed heroes try to get away from a teeming mass of mutant rats... and the mass consists of furry things (who does not even move) on a conveyor belt. Oh boy, oh boy. Then there's the ending... This movie would be an awesome doublebill with Bruno Mattei's equally inept Hell of the living dead. They sure don't come funnier than this.