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.

There are far too many movies which fail to give us someone in the film to sympathize/empathize with, whether through ineptness on the part of the director & actors, or because the characters are so vile/empty/cardboard/venal/pointless/useless that one doesn't want to admit they are the same species as ourselves.

The only sympathetic characters for me in "Notte di Terrore" were the rats who, far from being menacing, were in fact huddled miserably together, busily trying to clean from themselves the black goop with which they had been coated in a clumsy attempt to make them look menacing. As for the human characters -- I simply could not wait for all of them to be dead! If these were the survivors who were supposed to repopulate the planet -- let the rats have the whole damn world.

Not only do the rats have to suffer being gooped up, they have the further indignity of being repeatedly tossed at bad actors. And Italian animal rights laws evidently being looser, many rats are obviously injured or killed for the sake of action effects, including several which are clearly burned alive. Would that they could have given their lives for a more worthy film.

I hope this movie isn't intercepted by some alien civilization out there, because it would serve to convince them of the need to exterminate the human race. For the good of the universe.

Do you like competent actors? Senseical plot lines? Good writing? If you do (and you all saw this coming) do not watch this movie! On the other hand, if you like a good cheesy plot, some over-the-top gore, gratuitous nudity and buckets of lab mice painted black....this is the movie for you!

Just look at the title: What would you expect from a movie called "Rats: Night of Terror"? Hell, that title is the only reason I bought the film! It just screams cheesefest, and let me tell you there's nothing wrong with that. Sure the actors suck, sure some of the lines are horrible (Stupid machine needs a kick in the balls!), but who cares? Doesn't that just make it that much more fun?

The gore is actually pretty well-done, surprisingly enough. The corpses near the first look great.

Oh, before I forget: The ending! Even if you don't like this film, you NEED to watch the whole thing just to see the amazing ending. I don't want to spoil it, so I'll just leave it at that.

Overall if you don't enjoy cheesy movies, leave this one on the shelf. If you do enjoy the, this is a dream come true!

6/10

"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.