Horror Movie Review: Big Freaking Rat (2020)

Written and directed by Thomas J. Churchill, and starring Scott C. Roe, Caleb Thomas, and CeCe Kelly, Big Freaking Rat is, unsurprisingly, a B-movie about a rat that is transformed by toxic waste. The staff at a newly opened camp ground are going to need a much larger rat trap though because this thing is freaking huge.

If you’re going into a film called Big Freaking Rat and expecting anything high concept, anything serious, and anything with a well-thought-out plot, you’re a fool. This is a film that embraces what it is and delivers silliness, blood, and gore in glorious B-movie style.

Ranger Brody is ecstatic to be finally opening a brand-new campground for the season, something he, his nephew Dylan, his niece Naomi, and the staff have worked hard to do. It’s clean, it’s fun, and it’s safe… as far as they know. What they don’t know is a rat got into some toxic waste and the camp attendees are looking mightily appetising now.

All very familiar stuff and Big Freaking Rat sticks to the tropes through and through, especially from a character point of view. Lazily, in some regard too, as Dylan is a YouTuber/streamer and Brody doesn’t get it so thinks he’s a ‘slacker’, constantly muttering ‘millennials’ under his breath. It plays out like it’s supposed to be funny, but it’s not. Let’s get this clear. There’s a lot of positives about Big Freaking Rat, but comedy is not one of them.

Nor are its half-hearted attempts to be off-beat with far too much time dedicated to a group of ‘dumb’ Mafia types dealing with an informant. Which leads to a load of high-jinks with exterminator Lenny (Dave Sheridan) as what they deem a ‘rat’ and what he deems a ‘rat’ results in a ton of miscommunication. A joke that would be fine if it wasn’t dragged out to such a length that the padding becomes blatantly obvious.

Clearly the story didn’t have enough rat-based legs to constitute a decent runtime. Which is a shame as the big positive of the film is the rat itself, which for a low budget flick, is on screen a hell of a lot and completely practical. First, scurrying about and killing off some extraneous characters, before moving on to some of the bigger names (always nice to see Felissa Rose), and then facing off with the leads for an action-packed finale.

It’s when the film is at its most fun and because of that, at its best. A cheesy silly gore-fest that delivers on the promise of giant rat shenanigans and doesn’t overstay its welcome.