With Halloween coming up,I started looking round for Horror DVDs that I could list on Ebay,and I spotted a title that my dad gave me as a Birthday present!, (I'm not sure what that says about me!)which led to me deciding that it was time to face the Rat Man.The plot:Getting hold of a monkey and a rat, Doctor Olman decides to solve one of life's greatest mysterious:what would happen if you cross breed a monkey and a rat?! It turns out that the answer to the question is a psychotic animal that kills Olman and goes on a killing spree. Informed by the cops that her sister has been killed,a model visits the Caribbean island,only to discover that the police have mistakenly identified another girl as her sister! Joining journalist Fred Williams,the duo start to set out a rat trap.View on the film:Whilst the picture is rather rough round the edges, Shameless deliver a clear soundtrack,and inset "missing" gore/skin shots back into the title.Backed by an icy electronic score from Stefano Mainetti,director Giuliano Carnimeo tails a Slasher atmosphere into the creature feature,as smoothly held first person shots build anticipation for the rat attack.Offering a unique mix of Slasher & creature feature,the screenplay by Dardano Sacchetti & Elisa Briganti ruins any good will that the viewer gives the film by making the long non- Rat Man scenes incredibly dry,with there being no feeling of excitement over the duo getting closer the creature,in a movie which rats out on its promise.

Inspired by a song written by the Fall on their Totales Turns album, Ratman is a late era Italian horror thankfully devoid of haunted houses, but unthankfully full of boring stalk and slash sequences. A scientist on some tropical island has successfully managed to get a rat to breed with a monkey, somehow, and produced a rat monkey capable of poisoning anything it scratches within seconds. This creature of course has escaped and is now chowing down on anything it can get it's teeth into.This includes the bunch of fashion models led by Werner Pochtath (Days of Hell, Cat o Nine Tails), and his main model, Eva Grimaldi (Demons 5). After another model is stalked and killed and mistaken for Eva, her sister Janet Agren (Eaten Alive) goes looking for her, helped by legend David Warbreck (The Last Hunter, The Black Cat). And basically the film turns into Warbreck and Agren doing the old research on what's happening, and Eva trying to avoid being killed for the remainder of the film. Kind of like Tonino Ricci's Panic, also starring Warbreck and Agren. Directed by Guilliamno Carnimeo (director of the great Case of the Bloody Iris and numerous Westerns I've never got round to watching) Ratman is full of cheese, but it's also full of boobs and gore, so really, where do your priorities lie? This one doesn't go down the old haunted house road as a lot films do from this era, but on the other hand it becomes quite slasher-tastic in the old 'folks trying to hide from a killer' routine. I have the hiccups. It's really annoying. Really annoying. My wife has a remedy for it but she's in bed. Forget this film/ Do you have the hiccups? I hate the hiccups. Makes my stomach hurt from##jpepw;/ O cast/muppets

Four years before Peter Jackson's Sumatran rat-monkey caused a whole heap of trouble for Lionel in Braindead, director Giuliano Carnimeo introduced fans of Italian horror to Ratman, an equally troublesome simian/rat hybrid played by the world's smallest actor, Nelson De La Rosa.Suffering the indignity of having to strip to his waist and don plastic fangs for the part, little Nelson gives his all as the titular poison-clawed, killer critter created by an irresponsible scientist. Unfortunately, being only two foot four inches tall, Nelson's 'all' is nowhere near enough, and with weak support from genre regulars Janet Agren and David Warbeck, who practically sleepwalk though their roles, Ratman winds up being extremely disappointing.Between dreadfully dull scenes of chinwagging between Agren and Warbeck, as they attempt to discover who or what is responsible for a spate of recent murders, viewers are treated to a touch of light gore, plus some nudity courtesy of Agren's busty fashion model sister (who displays very unusual techniques when it comes to both modelling and taking a shower). There's also a little fun to be had from seeing just where teensy Nelson will pop out next: during the film, he launches attacks from a wardrobe, a fridge, a box, a luggage bag, and a toilet.All of this cheesy silliness, however, is not nearly enough to compensate for the movie's virtually plot less script, crap acting and torpid direction.

Somewhere in the Dominican Republic, a scientist creates a cross between rat and ape, which is poisonous and feeds on human flesh. Of course, the creature escapes and starts to kill everywhere. The sister of a missing model and an author of television crime stories start to investigate on their own and follow the monster's bloody route...This was one of the last "big" Italian gore shockers and has all the ingredients we've come to expect from such films as it is sleazy, sexist, gory and stupid as hell (heck, the scientist even wants to win the Nobel price for his monster!). The creature itself is, and that's a bit of a surprise, astoundingly scary (and ugly, too). However, as we can see the monster before it escapes and starts its killing spree and the director seems more interested in showing tits and gore than anything else, there's not much of suspense in the film. However it was nice to see the return of Italian horror film veterans David Warbeck and Janet Agren. A movie for fans.