RATS

Canada/US, 1982, 93 minutes, Colour.
Sam Groom, Sara Botsford, Scatman Crothers, Lisa Langlois.
Directed by Robert Clouse.

Rats, as its name indicates is in the line of animal menace disaster movies. However, being made in the early '80s it was rather late on the scene and suffers in comparison. Willard in 1973 was one of the earliest films to exploit the horror of rats.

This film is directed by Robert Clouse, veteran director of action films as Darker Than Amber, Enter the Dragon, Golden Needles and Bruce Lee's The Game of Death films (which are featured in this film where teenagers are menaced in the cinema by the rats). The film is Canadian-financed and is set in a Canadian city. The cast acts competently - they are required to look afraid, puzzled and investigate the sources of political and financial corruption in the city which leads to its being infested by rats. There are some spectacular opening sequences with the burning of rotten grain. Scatman Crothers has a guest role - until he is demolished in the drains by the rats. There are some gruesome deaths accordingly.

With the mixture of romance, a father with a young son needing a mother and getting into danger and teenagers being pursued by rats, the usual themes of animal menace and audience fear are there. They have been set in a context of social comment - and the film's brief running time makes it a reasonable contribution to the genre but by no means original or memorable.