Rats
Rats
| 15 January 2003 (USA)
Rats Trailers

The Brookedale Psychiatric Hospital is a crumbling institution which barely has enough money to remain open. Formerly a prison, it sits atop a warren of tunnels and sewage system viaducts. But Brookdale has a secret - a secret known by only one person. There's something living in the tunnels - something that's developed a taste for human blood...

Reviews
Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict
Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.
GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.
Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.
B_D My friend and I picked up Killer Rats from the bargain bin in the hopes that it would be one of my favorite kind of movies: the so-bad-that-it's-good trash fest. Unfortunately, Killer Rats entirely fails to deliver. It's bad, but not bad enough to laugh at, and ends up coming off as just boring.Let's start with what the movie does right. The acting, sets, and special effects in Killer Rats are surprisingly good for a movie of its caliber. Don't get me wrong, they're all pretty lame, but they're a few steps up from rock bottom. This is about the best compliment I could give the movie. Ironically, this makes the movie less entertaining; the production values never quite reach the "laughably bad" level - instead they hover somewhere between "mediocre" and "lame." Killer Rats does a whole lot of things wrong. The biggest problem is that it's just really boring. Every time it looks like a plot is about to develop, it stalls out. The first 75 minutes of the movie are dull and plodding, and the movie never really manages to go anywhere. It's pretty much just a bunch of mundane incidents in a rehab facility with a few halfway-decent death scenes thrown in for good measure. There is never any interesting/funny/witty dialogue. The final 15 minutes get a little more interesting, but the final fight is still pretty boring.For the life of me, I can't figure out what Ron Perlman is doing in Killer Rats. I bought this movie in large part because he's in it, but the script gives him NOTHING to work with. He plays an uninteresting, buttoned-down doctor, the sort that a movie with an even lower budget might have given to a random geriatric actor. I kept expecting him to relive some old war memories or become a badass, but he never did. At one point it looks like there is some tension developing in his character, but then it goes nowhere. If you see this movie hoping to get some cheesy-yet-satisfying Ron Perlman action, you WILL be disappointed.The Bottom Line: Killer Rats is not anywhere near good enough to stand on its own merits, and never gets truly bad enough for the so-bad-that-it's-good vibe. Boring, not worth seeing.
kai ringler Let's start out with the cons of the movie,, the computer generated big rat,,, well it's so obvious that it's fake,, i mean it hops like a bunny rabbit,, i have a problem with the doors where the patients seem to go,, HM shouldn't those doors be locked.. other than those two points , i really don't have any problems with this movie. The acting wasn't that bad, the movie wasn't given a big budget; so it's going to show up somewhere. I think that the premise wasn't too bad either, at first i thought it was going to be like Clockwork Orange, then came the RAts so i'm thinking,, okay,, attack of the killer shrews,, the characters in this movie are pretty good, i liked the head of the hospital, Ron Pearlman's character, the female reporter was a hottie, the head nurse was funny,, this is a good movie if you're looking to have a few laughs,, not scared of rats, not expecting too much, and just want to enjoy yourself,, this is not a thinking man's movie, and if you go in to the movie with that frame of mind , trust me you will not be disappointed.
Coventry Another new-age creature feature flick with awful...better make that...REALLY awful computer-engineered effects, lousy acting performances and an ultra-thin storyline. Hungry and overly aggressive rats are once again revolting against the bastard doctor who performed scientific experiments on them and all this is taking place at Brookdale; institute for juvenile delinquents, drug addicts and suicidal teenagers. The funky red-eyed rodents are commanded by a ridiculously fake mega-rat and, for some reason, the institute's nerdy janitor can communicate with them. There aren't many aspects in the script that make much sense, like we're supposed to believe that two teenagers are capable to go undercover in the US' most heavily secured rehab facility. The film is also remarkably boring despite endless cargoes of silly-looking rats and irritating teenagers getting eaten. Of all the crappy, exaggeratedly computerized angry-animals movies that came out since the new millennium (and the list is really endless) "Rats" surely is one of THE crappiest. Director Tibor Takács scored a few hits in the late 1980's, like "The Gate" and a personal favorite of mine called "I, Madman" but he should consider a slight career change now. This was just irredeemably bad.
slayrrr666 'The Rats' is a pretty entertaining killer rodent movie.**SPOILERS**Teenager Samantha (Sara Downing) is admitted into Brookdale Institute, a psychiatric hospital. It has been plagued by strange disappearances nearby that the police haven't been able to solve. The head doctor at the institute, Dr. Winslow (Ron Perlman) takes an immediate interest in her, and assigns her to a controlling roommate (Eileen Grubba). At first, she really doesn't know what to expect, but she quickly makes a friend in the facility, Naomi (Tarri Markel). The next day, she is missing, and Dr. Winslow suggests a cover up among the staff. Samantha doesn't believe it, and launches a hidden investigation into Naomi's disappearance and finds that the place is infested with rats. After two more inmates are found dead, Samantha believes more than that a cover-up exists. She begins drilling the staff to do something about the rat problem, and they finally hire an exterminator, (John Paul Young) who also falls victim to the rats. After several freak-outs from the other residents, Samantha resolves herself to find out what the staff at the hospital is trying to hide. She discovers that the janitor (Michael Zelniker) of the hospital is controlling the rats telepathically as the result of an accident from an experiment Dr. Winslow had conducted before the hospital was used as a psychiatric hospital.The Good News: For once, we finally get a horror film set inside a creepy location: an insane asylum. Granted, the idea has been done before, but nit with killer rats as the culprits. This was a great idea and should've been done a lot sooner. The location allows for the usual character stereotypes in these films: the caring doctor; the clue-less staff; the heroine; and the typical first victim who knows what's really going on. I've seen so many films where they try to step away from these stereotypes that, in a small way, it's refreshing to see those brought back into a film. That was a real nice surprise to see this old cliché brought back into a modern film. Even though the rats may be fake, I was glad that the blood and gore wasn't. The blood was realistic, and we even got to see some eaten-away carcasses. There were several of those, so it wasn't just one. The mother rat was very vicious and attacked everyone in sight, just the way a killer creature should be. The best quality is that something is always happening, so it doesn't move too fast for its own good and loose you in very confusing scenes. It did keep your interest, something all good movies know how to do and do well.The Bad News: The rats are so obviously computer generated that it looses at the terror in the script. The film does have some really suspenseful moments, but the badly designed rats nearly ruin it. It damages a film when we see this really great scene where the rats overwhelm their victim, yet the person is seen to be covered in fake rats that don't match up to the on-screen mayhem. It was very frustrating to see those kinds of scenes. I was really getting into the movie and then they had to show the fake rats in a scene where they are clearly not in the same shot in the movie. That was a real killer to have to watch that kind of scene. The ending was also very confusing. It featured the same kind of ending that all these movies seem to have. If you've seen one of these kinds of movies, you'll know the ending. It wasn't a very creative ending compared to the rest of the film.The Final Verdict: Keeping in mind that the rats are so obviously fake, this is still a pretty entertaining movie. The other 'Rats,' where they take over Manhattan, was only slightly better than this one, though both are recommended to killer rodent movie fans.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and mild violence on the rats