The Rats (2002)

John Lafia may have peaked fairly early on in his career, when he co-wrote the horror greatness that is Child's Play (although we all know it was very much Don Mancini's baby), but I wasn't about to pass over the opportunity to watch a TV movie he directed that was all about a dangerous outbreak of rat attacks. Especially one with a starring role for the lovely Mädchen Amick. So I watched The Rats, and I regret nothing.

It's quite simple. Things begin with one rat biting one customer (played by Kim Poirier) in a large department store. Amick plays Susan Costello, a woman who works in the department store. It eventually becomes clear that the store may have a slight rat problem, which means getting in hunky pest control expert Jack Carver (Vincent Spano). It also means struggling to get people to believe the enormity of the problem, even after a whole load of rats push through a vent and upset lots of kids in a swimming pool. 

Written by Frank Deasy, this is a film that hits all of the expected tropes you want to see from a movie with this premise. The dialogue is a bit cheesy and “on the nose” at times, but it’s also light and fun, only really becoming a bit more groan-inducing in the third act, where it slumps a bit instead of soaring.

Director Laguna does well in delivering the goods in a TV-friendly form. There are some decent set-pieces throughout, including that aforementioned swimming pool sequence, and the effects range from the impressive to the laughably bad (the worst being a rat face shown as it squeals/shrieks at a main character), but the big plus points here are the pacing and the leads, with Amick and Spano working well opposite one another.

Amick may be the person who has the rat details delivered to her in a way that informs the audience, but she is also allowed to play someone who seems far from helpless. Most of us dislike wild rats, her reaction to any encounters here show her staying calmer than I ever would, but she proves to be quite capable in helping to plan mass rodenticide, helped by her knowledge of the building (explained by knowing the place since her father worked there). Spano is a bit less watchable than Amick, but he is likeable enough in his role, manages to sound like he knows what he’s talking about, and plays the hero without being asked to overdo the full-on heroism. Daveigh Chase is a good child actor here, without being too annoying, Shawn Michael Howard helps to deal with the rats, and David Fonteno does decent work playing the kind of character who wants to keep downplaying the problem while events start to spiral out of control.

There isn’t much here that stands out, but this somehow still feels like a cut above many other TV movies, especially when we have now grown so used to the kind of fare that has populated the SyFy Channel for the past 10-20 years. Compared to many of those, this is slick and thrilling entertainment.

6/10

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Deadly Eyes (1982)

Poor James Herbert. Not only was he never truly given the recognition he deserved for his writing, in my view, but he also saw his material adapted into movies that ranged from the awful to the dull, to the entertainingly bad. Deadly Eyes, an adaptation of "The Rats", falls into the latter category, although I'll admit that I'm loathe to consider it actually bad.

The basic premise is simple. A load of contaminated grain leads to large, killer rats, and it's eventually up to a school teacher, Paul Harris (Sam Groom), and a health inspector, Kelly Leonard (Sara Botsford), to save the day. They might have some assistance from Dr. Louis Spenser (Cec Linder), an expert in rats who doesn't realise the full extent of the problem, but they'll struggle to keep themselves safe from the overgrown, deadly, rodents.

Adapting the hugely successful novel by Herbert seems like a no-brainer, especially in the early 1980s, when practical effects and a certain less restrained approach to getting wild antics on film would make this a more exciting prospect. But it's odd that this was given to Robert Clouse, a director best known for his work in martial arts movies (including a contender for the greatest of all time, and certainly the most iconic Bruce Lee movie, Enter The Dragon). Clouse had given us killer animals before (The Pack in 1977), and perhaps his work with dogs made him a strong contender here - as the large rats were depicted by Daschunds in rat costumes. He still feels like an odd fit though, with the material being ripe for a movie adaptation that could pile on the grisliness at every opportunity.

The script, based on an earlier treatment by Lonon F. Smith, is credited to Charles H. Eglee. It's certainly better than his first feature script (Piranha II: The Spawning), but that isn't really saying much. It's obvious, however, that this is a film that would have been massively improved by better special effects and some extra gore gags. Although the plotting is basic, and a bit laughable in places, it's really not often that far removed from the entertainingly brisk source material.

It's also a shame that the film isn't cast better. Groom gives a performance that is only slightly better than his turn in Deadly Games (at least there was a double-bill of Deadly films for him in 1982). Botsford tries her best, but she's often stuck playing second fiddle to Groom's character. Linder is the typical and reliable voice providing viewers with some extra facts, and a potential solution to the problem, and he plays his part well, and the other memorable character is Trudy White, played well by Lisa Langlois. Trudy is a student who has a crush on Mr. Harris, and Langlois is enjoyably coquettish and sweet in her role.

By most standard ways of judging such things, Deadly Eyes isn't a good film. It's not a good horror film. It's not a great adaptation of a fantastic book. And yet . . . it kind of is. It doesn't do enough to make the costume-wearing Daschunds convincing, nor does it do enough to be classed as one of the better directorial efforts from Clouse, but it does enough to entertain people who want something silly and undemanding.

6/10

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