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My mom remembers seeing "Willard" when it first came out, and so she encouraged me to see it. It tells the story of Willard Stiles (Bruce Davison), an outcast who still lives with his mother Henrietta (Elsa Lanchester). But Willard discovers that their house has some other inhabitants: rats. He quickly befriends the critters, and then turns them into a sort of army who will obey all his commands. To add to this situation, Willard and his mother believed that his father died naturally, but it begins to look like Willard's boss Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine) may have been involved.

The old, dark house, and the young man living with his mother might bring to mind "Psycho", but "Willard" seems to me to be more of a story of an outcast taking revenge on the world that rejected him.

Bruce Davison memorably portrays the title character in this entertaining animal-themed thriller that was a big hit back in its day. Willard Stiles is a wimpy, awkward doormat of a man, regularly chewed out by his demanding boss Martin (Ernest Borgnine) and harangued by his clingy, equally demanding mother Henrietta (Elsa Lanchester). He has zero friends in the world, until he decides to take pity on the scores of rats infesting his property. He even gives the two most dominant characters names: "Socrates" is a gentle white rat, "Ben" a more aggressive brown rat. Willard soon becomes able to get the rats to do his bidding, which comes in handy in such matters as revenge.

It's not hard to see why "Willard" would have connected with audiences back in 1971. The relationship between the boy and his rodents is admittedly touching, and the head rats Socrates and Ben are very well trained (as well as rats can be trained). Now, granted, you don't always sympathize with Willard. Sometimes he comes off as a real jerk. But you feel bad for him often enough to enjoy his revenge. For example, getting the rats to ruin a backyard dinner party held by Martin. You also hope that his budding relationship with a lovely temp employee (the appealing Sondra Locke) will better his situation, or at least brighten him up a bit. For this viewer, it didn't matter so much that the film "lacked style"; it was still a reasonably entertaining story (based on the book "The Ratman's Notebooks" by Stephen Gilbert) told in capable enough fashion by screenwriter Gilbert Ralston and director Daniel Mann. The music score by Alex North is simply wonderful.

Borgnine provides excellent support, obviously having fun with playing a mean, conniving boss who seems to take a perverse pleasure in humiliating Willard in front of others. Lanchester is just right during the amount of screen time that she gets. Michael Dante, Jody Gilbert, John Myhers, J. Pat O'Malley, and others comprise a fine supporting cast.

The clear lesson to be learned from this one is simply this: if you have very few friends in this world, do NOT turn your back on them, no matter how small they may be.

Followed by a sequel, "Ben", just one year later, and a second adaptation of the book in 2003 (with Crispin Glover as Willard, R. Lee Ermey as Martin, and Jackie Burroughs as Henrietta).

Seven out of 10.

Bruce Davison plays Willard, a repressed 29 year old with no social life outside of his mother (Elsa Lanchester) and her loudmouthed friends who constantly nitpick everything about him and tell him why he's never amounted to anything. Even worse, his boss (Ernest Borgnine at his nastiest) stole the company from Willard's deceased father and seems intent on running it into the ground and never giving Willard a chance to take over. Everything changes when he befriends a few rats he finds in his home and he realizes that he has the power to force them to do his bidding. It looks like everyone who ever doubted or wished ill will of Willard is about to get what's coming to them.

More psychological character study than outright horror film, Willard is blessed with a strong script with great characters and wonderful performances all around. If you're here for big shocks, jump scares, or buckets of blood, I'd suggest looking elsewhere, because this movie barely even earns its PG rating. What keeps it interesting are the characters and their human drama. If that sounds like something you might be interested in, then I highly recommend this movie.

A mousy, introverted young man befriends and teaches rats basic commands. Soon his home and life are preoccupied with this rodent infestation, coming particularly close to two rats, Ben and Socrates. Willard is played with great skill by Bruce Davison, communicating to the audience his despondency with family life as well as with his job. He has a love-hate relationship with his dotty, doting mother, played with the usual charm only Elsa Lanchester can exude. His relationship with his mother's friends is distant, and with his employer Martin, disastrous. Martin is played with relish by Ernest Borgnine, making the audience feel little sympathy for his fate. Naturally, Willard trains the rats to do "bad" things and this leads to a battle of wills between Willard and the main rat Ben(the lead character in the film's sequel BEN). Overall, the film is rather slowly paced, but well-acted and rewarding in the end.

The progenitor of the 'when-good-animals-go-bad' trend in '70s schlock films, "Willard" brings us the story of a boy and his rat, or eventually his rats, given the fecundity of rodents. The movie has the look of '70s TV and in places could be an extended episode of "The Night Stalker" or "Night Gallery" (especially the close-ups of busybody neighbour Charlotte (Jody Gilbert)). Bruce Davidson is quite good in the titular role, playing Willard as a normal looking nebbish, which makes his ascent to ratte-führer even more incongruous. His mother is played by the great Elsa Lanchester (one of the few actresses who could out-ham husband Charles Laughton) and Ernest Borgnine rounds out the main cast as Willard's lascivious dirt-bag of a boss. The story, script and direction are pretty simple, although there are some good jump-cuts to show people can be rats too (the best is the cut from the humans stuffing their faces at a particularly unappetizing buffet to the rats stuffing their snouts in Willard's basement). The rat wranglers earned their pay, as some scenes include hundreds of the rodents and Davidson seems completely at ease with the animals, which contributes to the film's verisimilitude. More fun than scary (unless you are musophobic) and not particularly gruesome, the movie appeals more to boomer nostalgia than to cinematic connoisseurship. Followed by a sequel "Ben", which contains the prettiest ode to a rat ever put on film.

Willard Stiles (Bruce Davison) is an introvert. His mother is bedridden. Her friends throw him a surprise birthday party and berate him for losing his father's business to Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine) who hired Joan (Sondra Locke) to take over his work. He has no friends but finds friendship with the rats in the backyard. Soon, his friends are multitudes willing to do his bidding.

The idea is there but this is shot in a flat, uninspired manner. The actors are either first rate or on their way. Borgnine is gloriously evil. Davison is a little green around the edges. This should be a lot more compelling. There should be more tension. It's got some creepiness but I would like more.

This is a film whose sequel is better known . BEN is remembered by people of a certain age after being broadcast one night and everyone discussing it in class . Rats were a mainstay of horror helped no doubt by the notorious British horror writer James Herbert whose novels were a massive favourite of British schoolboys in the 1980s . WILLARD is a film I had no knowledge and as far as I know had never been shown on British network television or if it had no one I knew had ever seen it and I only knew of its existence by looking up BEN on IMDb to find that fondly remembered film was a sequel to this one . I also managed to confuse the name Bruce Davison with Bruce Dern and had visions of a bitter and twisted misanthrope plotting cruel revenge against a world who has rejected him . This as it transpires in not how WILLARD pans out

There's a strange tone to this film . While up and coming film makers like George A Romero and Wes Craven were pushing the boat out as to what they could get away with WILLARD looks and feels exactly like a film that treats the Hats code as the word of God which was no longer in effect during its production . In fact much of it feels like it might be a romantic comedy or a Walt Disney film as a socially inept put upon young man trying to find some sort of target in life as destiny conspires against him

Davison occasionally over plays the eponymous title character , but you do feel genuine pity for him as he returns home from work on his 27th birthday and the guests of the party are all friends of his infirm mother . He has no social life and his life revolves around work where he is bullied by his heartless boss played expertly by Ernest Borgnine . As some people have picked up on - it's too obvious not to notice to be honest - WILLARD spends most of its running time as a character driven drama with an element of black comedy and even when it does throw its hand in and becomes an out and out horror revenge drama it's quite bloodless . Some people might think this a completely bland film for that very reason but it makes a nice change even in a film from 40 years ago where character is to the fore instead of gore

A few weeks ago I commented to a friend that Willard & Ben were fondly remembered movies from the 70s - he lent me a VHS copy of Willard which I foolishly watched. If you want to keep your fond memories it's best not to look to closely with older eyes.

1970's "Willard" looks and feels like a TV movie under the direction of Daniel Mann, based on Stephen Gilbert's 1968 novel "Ratman's Notebooks," emphasizing rats in a promotional campaign that earned an astonishing $12 million at the box office (my local theater paired it with another Cinerama release, "The House That Dripped Blood"). Those coming in expecting a horde of vermin would likely be surprised to find it a genuinely tragic human drama that never quite veers into horror territory, thanks to yeoman work from Bruce Davison in his sympathetic portrayal of Willard Stiles, who lost the family business to employer Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine) upon the death of his father, Elsa Lanchester typecast as Willard's dotty mother Henrietta. The film opens with Henrietta's overly protective friends celebrating Willard's 27th birthday, forcing the withdrawn youth to retreat to the relative safety of the backyard, where his cake attracts a small rat family. Willard's only escape from the abusive bullying of boss Martin is the tenderness of new girl Joan (Sondra Locke), and his obsessive training of the rats in his basement, cutting an opening in the screen to allow easy access. After his mother's unexpected death, Willard engages his tiny companions in a little espionage, spoiling an important get together at Martin's home, then stealing enough money to pay off his mortgage by frightening a wealthy patron out into the street. This was one of Borgnine's most vivid characterizations, a loathsome cad you just love to hate (the sign on his desk reads, "do unto others before they do unto you"), and his eventual comeuppance proves a sure audience pleaser, although the sight of his corpse lying on the ground is enough for Willard to turn his back on the rats and do away with them, only to learn too late that he's clearly outnumbered. We surmise early on that Mr. Stiles already has a screw loose, reminding us how it feels to be treated like a doormat by your worst employer, the ability to fight back an eternal impulse that only a select few might take advantage of. The rats look too cuddly to be scary (think of hamsters with long tails!), but with such repugnant humans populating Willard's universe it's no wonder that he becomes more attached to white rat Socrates and black rat Ben, the latter surviving for the inevitable sequel and Michael Jackson theme song.

Made the mistake of reading the book before seeing the movie; the movie, as a consequence, couldn't possibly live up to my expectations. Nor did it. But that's not a put-down. While there were some things that irked me (the mother rat's humble "thanks" at one point, the rubber rats all too much in evidence at the birthday party, etc.), Bruce Davidson and Ernest Borgnine deliver solid performances that help keep one focused on the twisted relationships that are the core of this film. (Elsa Lanchester as Willard's mewling mother also deserves mention.) I don't know how this one would hold up today, but, back in 1971, it was a must-see.

About 50 years ago, a small psychological horror movie came out based on Stephen Gilbert's short novel Ratman's Notebooks, entitled Willard. While not a critical darling upon its original release in early 1971, it did garnish enough audience revenue to warrant a semi-followup a year later. The main premise of the film, similar to the book, centers around a young man who relates a lot more to rats than other people, which is a fascinating character study on paper. As for how the film turned out, while not without its jumbled pacing, it is a fairly disturbing insight into a social misfit simply too old for his own good.

Willard Stiles (played by a young Bruce Davison) is a pleasantly presented albeit lonely young man with little connection to other people, even his aging mother, Henrietta Stiles (Elsa Lanchaster). Living with his mother in a run-down mansion, Willard ends up raising a horde of rats whom he befriends, and ends up basing his whole life around them. From the start of the picture, Willard seems well intent and mannered, but he becomes more relatable upon fathering all of the rats in his house backyard. As unhealthy as it may seem to the average person, these rats are the only thing that Willard has any real affiliation with, which makes his normal day job all the more peculiar. Even though he works at his family owned business, he works for the conniving Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine), who took over the company and pretty much shuts Willard down at any chance in the most subtle of ways. As a result, the unpredictable and frightening presence of these otherwise dirty rodents are perfect for poor Willard to maintain his life, as they give him a good reason to live life in his own weird way.

However, director Daniel Mann and screenwriter Gilbert Ralston hint at how slowly Willard falls into stubbornness and selfishness in treating his house as something for his new family as opposed to his real one. Given how much pressure people keep putting on Willard to sell his mother's home, as well as so much hostility coming from Mr. Martin and other colleagues, the otherwise innocent man trains the rats to wreak havoc on the people by means of vengeance. It's clear that Willard does value his newer family of rodents, but the levels on which he abuses his ability and their own well being go further and further into misfortune. The only human Willard has any sort of care towards is his friend and assistant Joan, who while a fairly bland female companion, does feel like a much more genuine contrast compared to everyone else in the poor man's life. It becomes all the more heartbreaking that she has no idea of the hole her own colleague has continuously dug himself into. As the old saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely, such is the case with Willard and his rat family.

Aside from Willard, the other character who practically steals the show from time to time is Ben, a black rat with behavioral problems. Although the rats in general give Willard a lot of trouble economically and mentally, Ben is the biggest problem child of them all due to his mischievous attitude and growing discomfort towards his own caretaker. Perhaps the one notable flaw of the movie is how it does take a while to really get going, as it does spend a lot of time showcasing Willard's miserable mother and her annoying companions to the point of disinterest. However, once Ben and other rats start to take over Willard's life, the film becomes a lot more intense, to the point where Alex North's initial brightfully cheerful score grows more and more sinister overtime. It's been said that the aforementioned director intended to start off the film as a dark comedy and then expose it as a full on horror flick with some blood and death here and there. In a way, by testing the patience of the viewers and allowing them to soak themselves into these rats, it made the payoff a lot more satisfying.

Looking at Willard 50 years after its original appearance, there's a lot to admire about it, and not just from how much popularity it gave to rats. Knowing just how much some human beings connect with other animals over their own kind, seeing the demise of an innocent loner through his failed care taking of a murderous rat family has left quite the impact on people over the decades. I would definitely give this a recommendation if you're interested in killer animal flicks, because it also acts as a reminder to not take your own pets for granted. The more you delude yourself in your creations, the further you will fall, and they'll do it for you.

Nervous young lad, living in a dilapidated Los Angeles manor with his nagging mother, befriends the rat population in his backyard, which comes in handy when he needs help committing a robbery or scaring off his enemies. Daniel Mann, the director of "The Rose Tattoo" and "I'll Cry Tomorrow," couldn't have been very happy about directing this venture, yet the low-budget picture grossed over $19 million at the box-office (a huge haul in 1971). It's an unpretentious exercise, and Mann does attempt to bring out the character drama within Gilbert Ralston's screenplay--and nearly succeeds. Bruce Davison works hard at creating an original, eccentric anti-hero, and the tone of the film is surprisingly jaunty, not excessively ugly or downbeat. Mann sets a brisk pace but, despite all efforts, this is still a picture designed mainly to give a squeamish audience a few visual jabs, and there isn't much to contemplate at the finale. ** from ****

A little flick that blends elements of psycho-drama and animals-run-amuck, along with a hint of old-dark-house. Willard is a socially-maladjusted young man who lives in a gloomy, Victorian house with his co-dependant mother. Their relationship constitutes the weird part of the movie, nudge, nudge. Willard is tolerantly allowed employment at his late father's business, presided over by passive-agressive Ernest Borgnine. With no social life and no friends, Willard resorts to training rats with above-average intelligence. Of course, things take a dark turn when Willard's mother dies and Borgnine's bully tendencies come to the fore, prompting the put-upon Willard to use his rodent buddies to even the score. Also on hand is Sondra Locke as caring co-worker who tries to enter into Willard's world and may be his means of salvation. You find yourself rooting for her to win out. Spawned a more (in)famous sequel, BEN, remembered primarily for it's theme song, which provided Michael Jackson with one of his first solo hits. Very appropriate, in hindsight.

Daniel Mann directed this surprise box office hit that stars Bruce Davison as Willard Stiles, a much put-upon young man who lives at home with his infirm mother(played by horror icon Elsa Lanchester), while at work in a company his late father started, he is being forced out by his loathsome boss(played by Ernest Borgnine) There is a pretty lady at work(played by Sondra Locke) who is nice, but Willard doesn't know what to say to her. His only real friend is his pet rat Ben, along with Socrates, and a growing army of rats caused by both his feeding them, and Ben's intelligence. When his mean boss kills Socrates, this sends him over the edge on a murderous campaign of vengeance that will be his undoing... Good acting and premise almost undermined by slightly indifferent direction, though this is otherwise a memorable, entertaining thriller that led to sequel "Ben".

I first saw this film in 1971 and just watched it again 47 years later. The only line I remembered was tear him up. I will not explain the line. A young man working in an office and living with his mother in a grand old California house is befriended by some rats who he feeds every day. Of course, he is treated badly by his boss and eventually gets revenge by using his rodent buddies. Ernest Borgnine is the bad guy and he is hilarious. The movie is quite campy and it is highly entertaining. This ain't high art but it is worth it for a few laughs.

I'm as creeped out as the next person by rats, but they aren't what I'd call horror-movie material. If anything, this movie made them a lot cuddlier and likeable than I'd regard them in real life. Bruce Davison plays his character like some kind of idiot savante. His over-acted nervous ticks got on my nerves. Oddly enough, for a guy who sometimes hammed it up, Ernest Borgnine wastes a good performance. He's pretty much the only believable character in this whole mess. Sondra Locke looks good and manages to get through a movie without coming across as a screeching harpy, which is an achievement for her. If this was the undercard at the Friday drive-in let's hope it was paired with a good feature or the place would have emptied out early.

A truly memorable 1971 thriller that has became a bit of an underground classic.

Handsom, shy Willard Stiles doesn't have an ideal life. He lives with his domineering widowed mother, is bullied by his boss, and doesn't have any friends. That is, until he befriends the rats in his garden and learns that he can make them do his bidding!

Highlighted by a touching and sympathetic performance from Davison, Willard is a different kind of "nature-strikes-back" film. It's a rare occasion where the human characters, rather than the animals, drive the film to its intense climax. There's plenty of twists and turns to be had, as well as a few moments of skin-crawl, especially for those who aren't fond of rodents! The movie also has a bit of a darkly humorous side to it. It's a bit of a rare movie to find these days, but seek it out and hope for a much-needed DVD release of this B movie classic.

Followed by a rather dark remake in 2003

*** 1/2 out of ****

Willard (a memorable performance by Bruce Davison) is a 27 year old who is socially awkward. He lives in a large house with his poorly nagging mother (Elsa Lanchester, perhaps best know as playing the Bride of Frankenstein), she asks him to get rid of some rats in their garden but instead he befriends them, then trains them to do things in return for food. At first this is all rather innocent and charming but when his mother dies things turn very dark in Willard's life and he uses the rodents to extract revenge on those that have wronged him. One of these victims is his mean boss, played by the wonderful Ernest Borgnine. The only person that Will can get along with well is his sort of girlfriend Joan, played bt the lovely Sondra Locke. Unfortunately for Willard rats don't turn out to be a young man's best friend! The movie is based on the Stephen Gilbert novel "Ratman's Notebook", I have never heard of it but I first heard of this movie some 40 or so years ago, this was my first time viewing and I enjoyed it. Good cast, well acted and the characters are all engaging. The house and the relationship between son and mother will feel familiar to any viewer that has seen "Psycho" (1960), though that is not a criticism in any way. Big Crosby Productions (BCP) made this movie, I think it fair to say that this is quite an early example of the 1970's trend for animals versus humans horror, though the horror here is none too horrific - unless you suffer with musophobia! From what I recall the 2003 remake was pretty good too.