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

  (Credited cast)

Ottaviano Dell'Acqua	...	Kurt (as Richard Raymond)
Geretta Geretta	...	Chocolate (as Janna Ryann)
Massimo Vanni	...	Taurus (as Alex McBride)
Gianni Franco	...	Video (as Richard Cross)
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

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.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Sharpie pen marks are visible underlining various words and sections of the text screen during the opening text crawl.

Quotes:

Video: Stupid machine needs a kick in the balls!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in There's Nothing Out There (1992)

Could have been great!

From the badly written introduction at the start of the film we learn the nukes have dropped and everyone has hidden underground. Rebels decide to go back to the living on the surface.

Basically what you've got is a very Italian looking gang with bikes and clapped out cars who find a town with food and fresh water. It turns out the town is infested with rats. So far you've got the makings of a really entertaining movie.

Unfortunately, the rats don't seem that keen on getting involved. They know this is an Italian production and that Italian movies couldn't give a damn about the animals involved so they are wisely cowering from the actors, or at best completely indifferent. This is most noticeable in the scene when they are trying to get up some stairs and the rats are trying to get away from them. You can shout that the rats are after you as much as you like, the viewer can see this isn't the case. The cardboard cut out rats used to represent a swarm are just funny and it's clear that rats are being thrown at the actors periodically. Unless you're completely callous you'll be rooting for the rats to at least survive the movie and completely ignoring the threadbare plot.

I think they should have just made a few giant rat heads and used those, it would have looked rubbish but it would have at least allowed them to simulate some kind of danger. I love bad movies in general but I didn't find this one at all funny really, it's just another Italian movie that looks promising but goes nowhere and drags on and on.

At least they put some effort into the ending, silly though it was.