Burial of the Rats

This film exists halfway between softcore lesbian porn and gore-soaked splatter as a cheap exploitation film that tries and then fails to do both, without too much concern for acting or dialogue. Mountains of barely clad female flesh go hand in hand with ridiculous violence in this barely recognisable adaptation of an obscure Bram Stoker story about a coven of rat-worshipping female bandits. While there isn't actually any lesbianism shown on camera the implication of its existence overwhelms virtually every other aspect of `Burial of the Rats'. The story follows the adventure of young Bram Stoker and his father, attacked by the bandits during their travels abroad. The younger Stoker kills one of them and is captured; the elder one tries to convince the local constabulary to search for his missing son even after receiving such matter-of-fact advise as `Go on home, and forget all about your son!' In a matter of hours young Bram has fallen in love with one Barbie-doll proportioned Rat Woman and become sympathetic to the others' cause, even if it entails murderous raids on monasteries and brothels. Meaningless topless dancing scenes and silly violence follow, including a gratuitous torture dungeon sequence and the sight of a bucketful of rats picking a corpse clean to a bleached skeleton in a matter of seconds. That a god-fearing Victorian moralist like Stoker would have even conceived of something like this is unlikely: `Burial of the Rats' is pure William Castle camp from the prison guard who can't recognise the protagonist because he has a hat on (!!) to the ludicrous moment when the Rat Queen plucks a disobedient rodent out of the pack on the floor at her feet and cuts its head off-with a miniature guillotine! Insipid and inane but much more fun than a dozen far more well-made `serious' films, this is a bad movie lovers delight!

Not usually my piece of cake but this dedicatedly cheesy treatment is extremely sophisticated in it's subtext. Of course you can't take the story seriously--that would be missing the point. Each step is a mindless cliché so you don't have to concentrate--the plot is wonderfully juvenile, thinly disguised soft core sadomasochistic fantasy--but wow the unreality it creates is absolutely breathtaking. The underground scenes--a utopia in reverse--dawn on you gradually. The dancing is sensual,quite beautiful, extremely well done-skillfully conceived and executed. And a whole cave society of beautiful women--each one more beautiful than the next--dressed in black leather bikini's --their waists severely cinched with black leather belts. Female dominance armed with knives and swords. By the time they attack the prison, you realize that these women don't just look nice they really know how to sword fight as well as any man. It makes me really proud of them. Expertly choreographed fight scenes. Inane special effects violence is intended to be funny instead of realistic--but watching these chicks is well worth it. I've never seen anything like it and enjoyed it very much.

While this 1995 movie is based on a Bram Stoker short story, then it doesn't automatically ensure that it will be a successful or interesting movie. And "Burial of the Rats" is not a particularly interesting movie, for sure.

There is only one reason for picking up this movie, and that is singlehandedly because of Maria Ford. Yes, the queen of B-movies is the main attraction in "Burial of the Rats".

The story told in "Burial of the Rats" is about young aspiring author Bram Stoker who is taken captive by a band of amazon-like women when he kills one of the women in order to save his elderly father. Being accepted into the sisterhood, Bram has to write about the amazon's exploits and raiding, in order to instill dread in the hearts of men. And the leader of the sisterhood is capable of controlling rats by the usage of a wooden flute.

Really? Yeah, that is what I thought too! It was just not very interesting, and the transition from short story from 1896 to a movie wasn't particularly exciting or captivating. I think this would have fared so much better had it stayed as a short story.

The acting in "Burial of the Rats" was as to be expected from a movie of this type, so don't get your hopes up. You know what you are getting right from the very beginning.

The choice of having a lot of scantily clad women does not make for a good movie. But I am sure there is an audience for this. And it seemed nothing more than a chance for director Dan Golden to show off semi-naked women. I just personally prefer something else from a movie. And the sex scene was so unnecessary, and it just sleazed up the movie unnecessarily.

However, the soldier costumes were quite good and did seem fairly authentic. So that at least deserves a thumbs up.

There is even some good laughs to be had throughout the movie. I was laughing a lot because of the rats and the way that they managed to consume all flesh and soft tissue of their victims in mere seconds, literally stripping the people to the bone. It was just hilarious.

When it comes to it, then "Burial of the Rats" is a less than mediocre movie, and it wasn't particularly entertaining.

The movie was rented by a friend and myself for a bad movie night. I am glad to say that our hopes were quite fulfilled in this regards. Whether it be the execution on the out of tune rate, unclothing of the evil rat women, or strange antics within the movie. The best part of the movie was when a guard had to remove a hat in order to recognize Stoker.

Bought this movie on DVD from a bargain bin and found it was well worth it. As far as eye candy goes there is a lot to see and the gore is all part of the fun. Leaves enough to the imagination. Watch this whenever I have seen something really scary in the news just to make me remember that I can still laugh. Adrienne Barbeau makes the Queen a real delight but I wish she had done a little more. Would have really loved to see a little more of the dungeon just for curiosity....Somehow I doubt that this movie will ever see Canadian TV. Take care....