Horror Movie Review: Rats: Night of Terror (1984)

Directed by Bruno Mattei, who also wrote the story, Rats: Night of Terror is a delightfully dated post-apocalyptic horror film that stars Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, Geretta Geretta, Massimo Vanni, Gianni Franco, Ann-Gisel Glass, Cindy Leadbetter and Henry Luciani.

Rats: Night of Terror is a bad film, but it is one that fits the over-used tag of being ‘so bad, it’s good’. Set in the futuristic year of 2015, the world was destroyed by a nuclear holocaust. Life finds a way though, and most of the survivors live in comfortable cities underground.

There are those that have shunned the underground cities though and have made a desperate and difficult life for themselves on the surface. These people are known as the ‘New Primitives’ and this movie follows a group who resemble a biker gang, leather and all.

Will scouring the land for shelter, food, and water, they come across a small abandoned town. Where they discover a bountiful supply of food and water. Enough to settle down and live here. Provided the group can find out what killed the people who lived there before.

As night falls, the killers will be revealed and its genetically mutated rats who are starving and used to feasting on human flesh. Forget the food and water now, for these post-apocalyptic survivors, it’s all about making it through the night and not becoming rat food.

Everything you would expect to make Rats: Night of Terror a cheesy and bad movie is present. From the awful acting, really egregious sex scene, unfortunate use of real rats for some questionable scenes, and slow moments, Rats: Night of Terror should be one to avoid. Yet, it rises up regardless of this, like the scene where a rat emerges from a corpses mouth. It’s elements like this that delight and Rats: Night of Terror has plenty of them.

Devoid of characters, the fun comes from seeing what the rats will do next and rarely do they disappoint. If you can get past the slow first third and the drops in pace in the latter third, it is a movie that will keep you engaged. Especially as it continues to spray the cheese around like it’s blood from a rat wound. All this culminating in an ending that is so absurdly silly, you won’t be able to stop yourself smiling.

It’s a worthy watch, a bit of a hidden 80’s gem, just don’t expect to come away thinking it was a good movie.