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The all time king of rat movies?

Joshua Koppel | 09/05/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I saw this on video back in the 80's, mostly because Peter Weller was in it, and he was (and still is) one of my favorite actors. He plays an NYC businessman who becomes obsessed with a really big and mean rat that's invaded the dreamhouse/brownstone he's personally restored. The filmmakers definitely had aspirations beyond just making a rat movie (at one point, Weller pounds on the ceiling with a copy of "Moby Dick"), but just as a rat movie, it succeeds beautifully: Increasingly scary and gory rat action, something the new version of "Willard" pretty much forgot to include. There's also a rat expert onhand, without which no good rat movie can do without - really two, if you count Weller's character, who starts spewing rat facts at inappropriate times at the movie goes on. (One of the great bits of dialogue goes something like this: "You're thinking of [the rat] maybe 10% of the time...but he's thinking of you 100% of the time..." Because he's a RAT, and rats is rats.) What really puts the movie over, aside from some pretty effective direction, is Weller's great performance as the businessman, who slowly starts to lose his grip the more he becomes obsessed with evicting the rat from his home. I'd rank it as one of the best performances in a horror film, up there with Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly." So, if you're into rat movies, it'd be hard to top this one for your viewing pleasure."