An experimental growth hormone causes lab rats to grow to giant size. Said enormous mutant rodents subsequently go on a gory rampage on a college campus.
Director Damian Lee, working from a totally inane script by Richard Bennett and E. Kim Brewster, treats the gloriously ludicrous premise with jaw-dropping misguided seriousness and hence delivers one of the single most sublimely silly creature features to ever emerge from the 1980's. Numerous touches and moments of inspired (and often unintentionally hilarious) absurdity abound throughout: A foulmouthed and ill-tempered titanic brat, insipid scientist hero Neil Hamilton (a hopelessly cardboard performance by Paul Coufos) dreaming that he starts to grow to gigantic size while in the middle of making love to enticing coed Mary Anne (foxy brunette Kimberly Dickson), a macho cigar-chomping Clint Eastwood clone rat exterminator, a rat attacking a dude who's urinating behind a bush (we're even treated to gut-busting shots of this guy's bare butt as he runs away screaming!), the ultimate agonizingly nasty fate of Hamilton's unscrupulous jerk rival Edmond Delhurst (ripely overplayed to the obnoxious hilt by Colin Fox), and, best of all, the vicious vermin making a bloody hash out of a pool full of synchronized swimmers (!) during the delightfully berserk climax. Curtis Petersen's slick cinematography gives this giddy dreck a glossy professional sheen. An absolute kitschy hoot.
Director Damian Lee, working from a totally inane script by Richard Bennett and E. Kim Brewster, treats the gloriously ludicrous premise with jaw-dropping misguided seriousness and hence delivers one of the single most sublimely silly creature features to ever emerge from the 1980's. Numerous touches and moments of inspired (and often unintentionally hilarious) absurdity abound throughout: A foulmouthed and ill-tempered titanic brat, insipid scientist hero Neil Hamilton (a hopelessly cardboard performance by Paul Coufos) dreaming that he starts to grow to gigantic size while in the middle of making love to enticing coed Mary Anne (foxy brunette Kimberly Dickson), a macho cigar-chomping Clint Eastwood clone rat exterminator, a rat attacking a dude who's urinating behind a bush (we're even treated to gut-busting shots of this guy's bare butt as he runs away screaming!), the ultimate agonizingly nasty fate of Hamilton's unscrupulous jerk rival Edmond Delhurst (ripely overplayed to the obnoxious hilt by Colin Fox), and, best of all, the vicious vermin making a bloody hash out of a pool full of synchronized swimmers (!) during the delightfully berserk climax. Curtis Petersen's slick cinematography gives this giddy dreck a glossy professional sheen. An absolute kitschy hoot.