The Rats

I had the pleasure to work on this film as the Second Unit Director (I shot all the rat stuff), but never got a chance to see the final product until tonight ,Sept 19 /02. It was fun. It's not The Godfather but i found it well edited and the folks at Core Digital did an excellent job with the water sequence and the rat multiplying. Carls death was great. It just reminded me that the stunt co-ordinator of the film Anton (Ty) Tyakodi was killed in a helicopter accident a couple weeks after we finished shooting. I'll miss him. John, learn how to move the camera and get off the long lenses once in a while. Too bad it was up against Survivor Thailand, no one probably saw it. Thanks to Eric and Robert for the chance to work on it.

In Manhattan, when a client is bitten by a rat in the dressing room of the Garsons Department Store and contracts Weil's disease, the manager Susan Costello (Mädchen Amick) is assigned to hire and give all the necessary support to the best exterminator in New York, Jack Carver (Vincent Spano). The efficient Jack and his assistant Ty (Shawn Michael Howard) find a colony of mutant rats and try to convince the health department administrator and former partner of Jack, Ray Jarrett (David Wolos-Fonteno), how serious the infestation is. But the politician Ray is interested in covering the problem to protect economical interests of powerful groups.

The theme of "The Rats" is absolutely unpleasant, but the way the story is approached in this movie is surprisingly entertaining. The chemistry between Mädchen Amick and Vincent Spano contributes to make this film work. I do not know if there is any veracity in the scary statistic of nine rats per dweller in New York, but if it is true, the reality is scarier than this film. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Ratos em Nova Iorque" ("Rats in New York")

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.

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!

Where I live, this film is available under the title "The Rats" and is very obviously a TV movie - no listing of production companies during the opening credits as well as fade-outs every fifteen minutes or so. Nonetheless, this is a very efficient nature-run-amok horror film, with much stronger gore than I was expecting. Madchen Amick plays Susan Costello, a department store manager who comes to discover that rats are all over the place. She calls in a discreet exterminator (Vincent Spano) to take care of the problem, only to learn that the rats are practically taking over the town, and have voracious appetites to boot. The TV production values prevent anything truly disturbing from happening, but the filmmakers seem to know what they're doing and have some fun with the premise. All in all, a good rent - unless it hits your TV screens first.