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.
Review of Rats: Night of Terror
