It is good going into these films 'blind' if at all possible. It's a risk, of course - sometimes you are met with something distinctly not to your tastes; other times you are met with fascinating gems like this. Mulberry Street in Lower Manhattan is in the grip of developers determined to tear down the ghettos, destroy the urban communities and make everything clean and new. The squalidity is expertly conveyed, with Director Jim Mickle (also well known for 2010's 'Stake Land') teasing out details of rubbish-strewn walkways, cramped and flaking run-down apartment blocks and most pertinent of all, angry mutant rats. So angry at the developments to their homes, in fact, that they begin to infect the locals, creating a race, not of zombies, but of rat-faced killers.It is an unglamorous setting, but there are moments laced with humour. A scrawled 'F*** you' on the bottom of a tenancy agreement pinned to a reception wall; the first infected local is discussed in a bar: "I'd be more concerned for the guy who bit him." This adds a warmth and humour that really sells the idea of this close community, and therefore we care about what happens to them.Casey (Kim Blair) is out on the streets when things become nasty. Kay is a pretty blond woman, resourceful and real, as unlike a screaming bimbo as it is likely to be. She's played by Bo Corre, possibly best-known for her role as Ingrid in short-lived BBC soap 'Eldorado.' Strong, shy Clutch (Nick Damici) is the object of her affection, with Coco (Ron Brice) a jealous rival for his attention. A heady, likeable bunch, and all firmly established by the time the mass infection takes effect. Like impossibly fast-moving Nosferatu-types, these creatures' stuttering attacks are very much in the style of those from '28 Days Later (2002)' and every bit as effective.Gloomy, cruel and hard-hitting: I loved every minute of this.

I guess I just assumed that Mulberry Street would be another typical zombie movie when I heard of it a few years ago and I never saw anything in the ensuing years to make me think otherwise. Well, after finally catching a glimpse of this little gem, I can happily report that I was (mostly) wrong. Sure, there's a Night of the Living Dead vibe, but I also found resemblances to Cronenberg's Shivers and even The Warriors.We start off in NYC where underground rats are starting to get very aggressive. The story follows six or so residents of a run-down apartment building and the returning soldier daughter of one of the tenants and how they react to the horrifying attack on their city. As the rat attacks escalate and victims grow ever more violent, New York is essentially isolated and shut down, and our main characters mirror that while they are locked down in their building.So many things worked for me in this movie. The post 9/11 allegory of a New York under siege. Characters who looked like (and for the most part behaved like) real people. I genuinely liked our main characters, even though there wasn't a whole lot of time spent getting to know them in detail. The soundtrack was great. A few moments were genuinely tense. I also thought being just plunked down into the middle of the story worked and heightened my disorientation and paranoia.One thing I didn't care for was the odd lighting used in much of the film. A large portion of the movie takes place overnight and too much of it is too dark to really see what's happening. Other times, the action is lit in a neon green which is jarring, although it may be used to represent the "rat's eye view" as the plague takes over the city. Whatever - it's still hard to look at. Sometimes the editing was just too choppy and our heroes seem to want to fistfight the infected too often when other weapons would be more effective.Overall, Mulberry Street was unexpected, fast-paced, bleak, and even heartbreaking in a few spots. Regular folks in irregular situations often make for a pretty good horror movie, and I'd say this is one of those cases.ff

This movie came highly recommended by a colleague at work. Hearing someone say that they saw a cool horror movie that they really enjoyed, you cannot help yourself but follow their advice to check it out. Thus, we started watching this movie hoping it would deliver, yet when the closing title appeared, it came with a sense of disappointment. Maybe our high expectations ruined it, or maybe it was all the rat noises thrown in to scare people... Rat noises, either with or without a bit scary rat close up, especially if you keep repeating it over and over and over, become tiresome to hear after a while. Why rats you wonder? Because its a twist from the normal zombie movies, it involves rats as the origin of all the problems. It does not explain why, maybe its because rats are icky and scary, and they kill people and such. The why or how are not important, that's left for you to decide... moving on.The actors do a good job and the the characters are nicely played, you kind of feel for them and for what you know is coming, and its interesting to watch their lives unfold with the warning signs increasing in the background (TV reports, etc).First half of the movie is quite uneventful, and it slowly picks up the pace, with a scare or two thrown in to to keep us going, or awake, depending on what time of the day it is. Until finally, and as usual with a zombie horror flick, chaos breaks loose and it has some good moments and scares. But in the end it raised more questions than it it could or wanted to answer... and I left feeling tired instead of entertained.Don't watch this with any expectations whatsoever...

I'd been curious about this because when I was small I read TO THINK THAT I SAW IT ON MULBERRY STREET, and so it had my attention from the get-go based on that.The template is, of course, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and, before that THE BIRDS. A group of people is trapped together while under attack from external forces.The thing is, this is a very interesting group of people played by excellent but unknown actors. This is actually a benefit: if big stars were cast, you'd have a pretty good idea what the life expectancy of various characters was.The main character is Clutch, a former boxer. He lives on Mulberry Street in New York City- and this is actually New York City, not Toronto- in a neighborhood that is undergoing massive change. Real estate developers are chasing off the locals (i.e. poor people and/or minorities) to put up luxury buildings. But what they can't get rid of is the rats. In the heat of summer they are thriving, and they become bolder and begin attacking people. When people are bitten they become monsters and attack other people, thus spreading the disease more and more quickly.Clutch's daughter, Casey, is coming home bearing the scars of war in the Persian Gulf. She gets to Manhattan, but when the subway trains stop running due to the epidemic she has to make her way to Lower Manhattan to find her father and his friends.I can't believe this movie was made on such a small budget. Wow. If there were any justice the people who worked on this movie- the actors didn't get paid, most were friends and relatives of the director and writer- would all be millionaires.