Thanks to Paperbacks from Hell, I've learned all about James Herbert, the British horror author whose four The Rats novels pretty much defined the evil rats against man genre. Imagine my surprise in finding this Canadian horror film that pretty much takes Herbert's story and runs away with it (or gets away with it).Paul Harris is a divorced high school teacher and basketball coach who is dealing with rats the sizes of small dogs that have been found living in buildings containing steroid-rich grain (ripped from today's headlines!) that the health department orders burned. Now that the rats are homeless, they're looking for a new home and new eats, too.First, they surround a baby in a high chair and make him a snack. Then, they get a senior citizen. Soon, they're chasing down Scatman Crothers and eating him, too! Oh no, Scatman!Even spraying the rats with gas does nothing. Nope, instead they attack a bowling alley and a movie theater showing a Bruce Lee movie (director Robert Clouse also directed Lee's Enter the Dragon and Game of Death). None will be spared as the rats feed. Not Trudy (Lisa Langlois, Happy Birthday to Me), the cheerleader in love with Paul. Not her best friend Martha (Lesleh Donaldson, Curtains, Funeral Home, Happy Birthday to Me). And certainly not the mayor who acts like he's in the Canadian version of Jaws and then has a party on a subway train that gets infested by rats. Finally, Paul, his love interest Kelly and his son make it through the rats' nest only to get on the same train as the mayor's dead body.So how did they get the rats for this movie? By putting dachshunds in fur suits, a The Killer Shrews plan if I ever heard one. Sadly, one of the dogs died during shooting as it was suffocated by its suit.Herbert referred to this film as "absolute rubbish." Sadly, we've yet to see the definite adaption of his work. We'll have to make due with this, I guess. Where I disconnect with the film is that I could see it happening in New York, but Toronto? That's the cleanest city I've ever been in. I bet the rats could do much better elsewhere.

A disappointingly weak adaptation of James Herbert's nasty novel of the same name, this plodding movie strings together a number of passable action sequences of people being attacked by giant rats with some dull characterisation involving everyday run-of-the-mill characters that it's difficult to care two hoots about. The movie has a cold, clinically detached feel to it which oddly seems to be the case with most horror movies filmed in Canada - check out Cronenberg's early work if you don't believe me. This opinion comes from a big fan of monster movies, too, so be prepared to rate it even lower if you're not a fun of such fare.From the twelve minute (!) pre-credit sequence to the supposedly shocking freeze-frame of a papier-mâché rat "head" lunging at the camera at the end of the film, you won't find much to shock or terrify you with this movie. It may just send you asleep though. While the rat attack sequences are undoubtedly the highlights of the movie and contain some nicely gory touches, most are filmed in too-dark locations to disguise the fact that the oversize rats are simply dogs dressed in rat costumes. I know that the film got a lot of stick for having dogs as the villains, but for me the effect is pretty realistic in long-shot.The increasingly bizarre murders are initiated by a genuinely shocking attack on a young baby, followed by an old man, a professor, a kid in a bowling alley and even patrons of a cinema (showing GAME OF DEATH of all things) getting chewed by the pesky rodents. Events culminate with the rats loose in a subway and a train containing the mayor and guests of an official opening party breaks down and everybody gets bloodily massacred. The film's token hero, his love interest, and child find themselves besieged by the ravenous critters before escaping with the help of a well-timed explosion, and then the film just suddenly freeze-frames at a downbeat moment with no finalisation or epilogue to finish it off. It looks like they ran out of film! The lack of appealing characters really hurts the film too, and makes it difficult to care. Sam Groom, the film's lead, is a good actor but his teacher, while well characterised, is just boring and ordinary and displays little heroic tendencies. The rest of the unknown cast are okay, but nobody really shines with the exception of token star Scatman Crothers, who ends up being just as unlucky as he was in THE SHINING. Even the gore effects, while nicely bloody, are only shown in quick glimpses perhaps to disguise the low budget. I found this to be a watchable film but a distinctly unimpressive one which is already beginning to fade from my memory, despite the fact I only watched it yesterday. I'm sure that in a week's time all I'll have will be a fleeting memory...

This is very loosely based on Classic James Herbert Novel Rats , I heard nothing but really bad stuff comment about this movie, It taken me while to see it!As I been in Killer Rats movie mood lately , I gave this go.You know what, I actually it enjoyed it, I thought it was so much better then I thought it was going to be.We know no movie is better then any book. no matter how good the movie is never come close to the book.I found this really well paced it as some really good attack scenes in this movie, some very bloody moment in this movie not not gory.Those are some big ass rats in this movie (I know their dog in rats suit) They didn't look half that of bad.The acting was really good in this movie for this kind of movie from the whole cast. I didn't like some of the sub plot were a little boring at, Girl in love with teacher, they should have skip that, we could got more Rat actions.The loved the way the movie ended 7 out of 10. I had fun watching this movie!

Yeah the movie sucks but we had a great time making it. I got thrown through a glass window, hurled down a flight of stairs, and had dog food and corn syrup plastered on my face so the dogs would "eat" me...I gotta tell ya, the dogs were treated like kings. Each dog could only work 2 hours and they could only shoot for 5 minutes at a time. They all had air conditioned kennels.The humans on the other hand... well we just had to fend for ourselves...George "Stompy" Hollo