Rats - Notte di terrore (1984)

Director:

Bruno Mattei

Writers:

Claudio Fragasso (screenplay)
Bruno Mattei (story)

Release Date:

5 December 1984 (France)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Mutants of a nuclear disaster

Plot:

One hundred years after a nuclear war has devastated the planet, society has been reborn into two factions;...

Plot Keywords:

Nuclear War | Rat | Gore | Mutant | Survivor

Cast

Ottaviano Dell'Acqua	...	Kurt (as Richard Raymond)
Geretta Geretta	...	Chocolate (as Janna Ryann)
Massimo Vanni	...	Taurus (as Alex McBride)
Richard Cross	...	Video
Ann-Gisel Glass	...	Myrna
Jean-Christophe Brétigniere	...	Lucifer (as Cristoph Bretner)
Fausto Lombardi	...	Deus (as Tony Lombardo)
Henry Luciani	...	Duke
Cindy Leadbetter	...	Diana
Christian Fremont	...	Noah (as Chris Fremont)
Moune Duvivier	...	Lilith
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gianni Franco

Also Known As:

Blood Kill (USA) (trailer title)
Les mutants de la 2eme humanité (France)
Les rats de Manhattan (France)
Rats
Rats: Night of Terror

Runtime:

97 min | Belgium:90 min (video version)

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Italy:VM18 | Italy:VM14 (DVD) | Australia:R | Denmark:15 (video premiere) | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | USA:Unrated | Canada:18+ (Quebec) | Canada:R (Ontario) | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Incir De Paolis Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Beatrice Film

Trivia:

In Germany this movie was presented as the third part of the "Bronx Warriors"-Series by Enzo G. Castellari.

Quotes:

Video: Stupid machine needs a kick in the balls!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in There's Nothing Out There (1992)

Rats! What a terrible movie.

It's the sort of plot line that could go either way - but if you've seen any of Bruno Mattei's other efforts, you probably already know which way this one went. The film is something of a cross between John Carpenter's influential (to Italian filmmakers) Escape From New York, and James Herbert's book 'Domain' - which the film may not have taken influence from since it was released in the same year as this nonsense, and I'm not sure that Bruno Mattei could actually read. The plot follows a war of some sort, which has left the population decimated. One half lives above ground, the other under - and now they have flesh eating rats to contend with. The rats themselves are hardly fear inducing as they're not giant or even menacing, and basically they're just your usual bog standard rats. The script is ridiculous and there is pretty much no attempt to capitalise on the horror of this situation as Mattei prefers to keep the focus on his ragtag bunch of characters, the most ridiculous of which is a bald idiot with a triangle on his head. On the plus side, the music isn't bad (despite being highly derivative of a number of other soundtracks) and there are some nice kill scenes even if most of it isn't really visible. Overall, there's not a lot to recommend Rats for - and therefore I don't.