The Rats

It's amazing what you can achieve if you dispose over a bit of professionalism. Even the most routine straight-to-cable production can be worth watching if the acting and directing is a little decent. It was the Fox Network that hired John Lafia (Man's Best Friend) to do the directing and the still yummy Mädchen Amick for the female lead. Vincent Spano (Alive) and Daveigh Chase (The Ring) complete the above average cast. The premise of a giant rat-plague threatening a big city isn't exactly new, but still this film succeeds in bringing a bit of tension and entertainment. Mostly thanks to the excellent underground shooting locations (basements, sewers, subways…) 'the Rats' looks icky and a bit unsettling. The rats naturally are slightly mutated by lab-tests and therefore a lot more aggressive and more difficult to annihilate. The grotesque finale in which a swimming pool is used as a rat-fountain is very over-the-top, yet brightly and well elaborated. Mädchen Amick is a seriously underrated actress and I hope she'll receive some new, bigger acting offers real soon. Vincent Spano is pretty good as well and he clearly enjoys sharing rat-trivia with the viewer. I don't know if all what he said is true (for every inhabitant in NY there are 9 rats?? You can get Weil's disease from a rat-bite??) but it was interesting nevertheless. Recommended!

I'll be truthful, when I first picked up this movie in the library, I though I would cry myself to sleep because of how horrible it might be, but I digress, it was pretty good. There were some scares; some scenes were you just cringe because its rats but I liked it. It boils down to New York run amok by rats, but these are no ordinary rats, they are, in fact, parasitic disease-spreading rodents that broke out of an abandoned genetics lab.

The movie had some pretty sly humor and the characters were very well played out. The whole concept of rats invading a luxury department store and finding mounds of rat crap all over the place, using a dark light, was the funnies thing I have ever seen in a rodent movie. Some interesting scenes involving massive hordes and tunnels of rats got me pretty uncomfortable, some, like the pool scene, were suggestive considering massive blood loss of kids.

The movie had some pretty snappy comebacks and a humorous relationship between the sophisticated luxury department store owner and the suave discrete exterminator. Their relationship, at points, is hard to look at because of campy level it's on but nonetheless a very good relationship. I liked how the Health Department is trying everything to cover everything up and…..its just a funny, scary movie.

Of course, there is a limit of how much corniness and silliness a movie can have. But despite that factor, this isn't that bad of a movie, the rats are more of a vermin that his movie and I think that any horror fan should at least try this movie. I like it, not loved it, but like it, and I hope other will.

Having read James Herbert's The Rats, Lair and Domain years ago, my mind was screaming with the possibilities of seeing these great novels on the silverscreen! So when i saw this title at my local videostore on DVD, i knew the odds were high of the film being very well be corny.. but i wanted to live out my dream, even though the film never actually states that it is based on Herbert's writings in any way.

I was setup for a let-down, but as i watched and watched, this film was actually above B- Grade! To tell you the truth, it is a really top notch flick that i wish had been based off, or had something to do with Herbert's books!!!

I dont know any of the actors, but their performances were pretty solid, and to tell you the truth, the movie fit the horror bill quite well.

I dont want to spoil anything for you, but i for one am glad that i got to this one before the actual 1982 Herbert novel adaptation entitled simply Rats (aka: 'Night Eyes', 'The Rats' or Deadly Eyes'), which im too frightened to watch after reading shocking reviews. I simply dont want to spoil the books.

If you happen to see the title around someplace and are a fan of Herbert's excellent novels, then go for it, i say! For something that i was expecting very little of, its certainly worth a look.

Not for the weak hearted. Legions of vermin infest a Manhattan department store and causes concern for the city as they escape their underground world. Some very good computer generated effects: watching rats fill up an empty swimming pool will make you squirm. An above average made-for-TV movie and worth watching...if you can stand watching violent rats in rage. The cast includes: Madchen Amick, Vincent Spano, Shawn Michael Howard and Daveigh Chase. Creepy.

I stumbled across "The Rats" in a local video store. Since I was in

the mood for low budget B horror, I took a chance and rented it.

What a wonderful surprise.

Superficially, the film's premise seems to be one of the many

overdone, tired plots we've seen so often. Instead, the viewer is

treated to a well made, well acted film. It is suspenseful and

benefits from good special effects for the rats (animatronics and

CGI, apparently).

The basic storyline concerns a colony of bioengineered rats that

were inadvertently allowed to escape from a defunct lab in New

York City. Years pass and the rats become a massive horde of

aggressive, disease-spreading vermin. After the Health

Department decides to ignore the problem, it is left to an

exterminator (Spano) and a department store operations manager

(Amick) to investigate the problem and deal with it.

Fans of B movie horror should definitely give this a chance. It is far

better than the title or basic premise would suggest.