Tweet
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: November 26th, 2024.
Director: Bruno Mattei
Cast: Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, Geretta Geretta, Massimo Vanni
Year: 1984
Purchase From Severin Films
Rats: Night Of Terror – Movie Review:
Bruno Mattie's 1984 picture Rats: Night Of Terror is set in a post-apocalyptic future of 225 A.B. (yes, A.B., that's not a typo - it stands for After The Bomb!) and it brings us into a world where civilization as we know it has fallen. Society lies in crumbles and many of the few humans left now live the lives of scavengers, often taking shelter underground. Into this world comes Kurt (Ottavniano Dell'Acqua), the leader of a biker gang made up of a black chick named Chocolate (Geretta Geretta), Taurus (Massimo Vanni) and a few other characters with goofy names… Video (Gianni Franco) for example.
Their travels bring them out into the desert where they find an abandoned ghost town that is ripe for the picking - there are plenty of food rations and other valuables and they decide to make themselves right at home. Eventually they realize that under this town is a huge underground city, the location of a former science experiment. It turns out the inhabitants were eaten alive by the hordes of rats that now call this place home. As Kurt and his pals roam around, they too come under attack from the killer rodents who, since the bomb was dropped, have mutated into smarter, stronger, faster rats than have ever been known. Will the recording they discover left by one of the dead scientists be enough to help them survive or will they too fall prey to the beasts?
Mad Max meets Willard? Sounds like a solid idea in theory but this is more like New Barbarians meets Deadly Eyes except not nearly as good as either one of those films. Once again Mattei's well-known penchant for disregarding logic in favor of poorly staged exploitative set pieces is in full reign while the cheapjack production values and absolutely horrible eighties era 'apocalypse punk' wardrobe choices scream ridiculous dayglo screams of the era in which this picture was made.
What the film lacks in gore and boobies (we get noteworthy doses of both but not on the same level as some of Mattei's better pictures), Rats: Night Of Terror makes up for, sort of, with guinea pigs died black (with the one infamous exception wherein Mattie and company opted to just glue a bunch of fake rats to a conveyor belt!). These creatures and their beady red eyes roam the darkness of this horrible future bringing certain doom to annoying characters with yet more awful dubbing. Some will object to some scenes involving the obvious harm of real, live guinea pigs, others will just shrug and accept it for what it is and the climate that existed in the Italian film industry at the time. This one moves at a considerably better pace than Hell Of The Living Dead (a film it was double-featured with in North America via Blue Underground) and it's chock full of ridiculous, nonsensical dialogue. It's still a horrible film, but it’s also a lot of stupid fun.
Rats: Night Of Terror – UHD/Blu-ray Review:
NOTE: As this review is based on an online screener provided by Severin Films for review purposes, the technical portion and the extras review for this release will is not complete. If/when finished product is made available, we’ll update this review accordingly.
The stream offered for review presents the movie in a 1080p high definition transfer, framed at 1.85.1, while the UHD would, obviously, be a HVEC encoded 2160p transfer “scanned in 4K from the original camera negative.” Streaming compression aside, the picture quality here is nice. Skin tones look lifelike and accurate and colors are reproduced very nicely. Black levels are decent and detail looks quite good. This should translate nicely to a proper UHD transfer.
Audio chores on the stream are handled by an English language 2.0 Mono track with optional subtitles in English. The finished product should also include an Italian language track 2.0 Mono track. Clarity on the English track is good, there aren’t any problems to note here. The dialogue is easy to understand and follow and the track is well-balanced.
Finished product will be a two-disc set with extras spread out across the set as follows:
Disc One (UHD):
The only extra slated for the UHD is the film’s original theatrical trailer.
Disc Two (Blu-ray):
-Mad Rats: The Making Of A Cult – Featuring Co-Writer/Uncredited Co-Director Claudio Fragasso; Actors Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, Massimo Vanni, Ann-Gisel Glass And Jean-Christophe Brétignière; Composer Luigi Ceccarelli; And Still Photographer Gianni Leacche
-Of Rats And Men – Interview With Director Bruno Mattei
-Richard And The Rats – Interview With Actor Ottaviano Dell’Acqua
-Chocolate And Rats – Interview With Actress Geretta Geretta
-Last Rat Standing – Interview With Actor Gianni Franco
-Rats Dance – Interview With Composer Luigi Ceccarelli
-Bruno And Claudio, I Knew Them Well – Interview With Executive Producer Roberto Di Girolamo
Also slated to be included on the disc is Bonded By Blood, which is made up of interviews with co-writer/co-director Claudio Fragasso and cast members Margit Evelyn Newton, Franco Garofalo, Ottaviano DellAcqua and Massimo Vanni. Originally included on the aforementioned Blue Underground double feature release, this fifty minute piece spends more time with Fragrasso than the others but that's okay because he's got some great stories to tell about how he wound up working with Mattie, how the late director took credit for pictures they co-directed together and why he loves making low budget horror films. The cast members talk about how they wound up on their respective projects, the characters they played, what it was like working with Mattei and Fragrasso on location and more. This is a well put together piece that really does a great job of shedding some welcome light on the history of these two cult classics and it's an excellent addition to the disc.
-"Under The Black Sky" Severin Produced Music Video With Geretta Geretta
-Trailer
This release is also listed as containing the film’s entire soundtrack on an audio CD.
Rats: Night Of Terror – The Final Word:
Rats: Night Of Terror is absolutely as ridiculous as it sounds but it’s hard not to be entertained by this one, a genuine trash epic if ever there was one. Severin’s UHD/Blu-ray combo edition looks to be a good one, offering up more extras than anyone probably ever expected a film like this to get with a new 4k transfer to go along with it.