5. Willard (2003)
The Willard remake is far less sensitive than the original film, but it’s also not the craptacular pretender you might expect it to be. Crispin Glover strangles this performance, but it hurts so good. He’s acting to the cheap seats, projecting his loneliness at the start of the film with the subtly of a sledgehammer. He makes his agony your agony. You’ve felt his pain before; you crave the revenge he craves.
When Ben, Socrates, and the other rats offer him hope and purpose, you nod your head firmly in acceptance. These little furballs are his friends, and we could all use a few dozen beasties to fight our battles. You can’t un-fire a gun, though. Once the rats are unleashed by Willard’s rage, there is no going back. Asking these razor-jawed demons to heel is a fool’s errand. They gotta eat. (Brad Gullickson)
4. Willard (1971)
Comparing the two Willards isn’t particularly useful because they are two entirely different films. Which really, is a good thing. If only more re-treads were as brazenly stylish and expressionistic as the 2003 remake. The plot beats between the two films are effectively the same: a meek young man named Willard can’t control his life, but he can control rats… or so he thinks. What fundamentally differentiates the two films, and what puts the 1971 original higher on this list, is that Daniel Mann’s rodent terror trip is grounded in an emotional fragility that tips it over the edge into a different tier.
Bruce Davison portrays Willard as a sensitive, wounded, and fundamentally empathetic young man. He isn’t a greasy-haired eccentric, but a dangerously lonely and frustrated person who could, conceivably, make it out of this mess in one piece. The horror of the film isn’t in the rats (despite it being on a list of rodent horror), or even in Willard himself, but in the tragedy of their relationship: how it speaks to a terribly relatable need for connection, codependency, and control that, in Willard’s circumstance, puts him on the slow dive to disaster. (Meg Shields)
3. From Dusk Till Dawn (1995)
Part rat, part Sex Machine — words I never thought I would type in that order, but here we are — this creature is all nightmare. Slick and snarling as if it had just been birthed from the bowels of hell, which it basically was, this mutant rodent wastes no time in its attempts to tear George Clooney’s Seth Gecko limb from limb. Needless to say, it makes one hell of a vermin adversary. It also provided us with a philosophical question I encourage everyone to pose to friends, family, and strangers on the street: would you rather fight ten rat-sized Tom Savinis or one Tom Savini-sized rat? (Anna Swanson)
2. Of Unknown Origin (1983)
You ever wondered what it would be like to watch RoboCop go to war with a single rat? Well, you should have stopped wondering 37 years ago when George P. Cosmatos answered that question with Of Unknown Origin. Peter Weller stars as a young successful businessman in the process of bagging a new high-profile client. While his wife and child head out on vacation he stays home to finalize things with this client. Unfortunately, he’s repeatedly disturbed by a rat that has decided to move in. This movie works because it’s simple. Weller wants to get work done, but this rat won’t let him, forcing him to go to great lengths to stop him. Weller begins to lose his mind, destroying his house in the process. (Chris Coffel)
1. Graveyard Shift (1990)
Sure I could talk to you about how Graveyard Shift can be interpreted as a sly metaphor on the deconstruction of the working class in the wake of the collapse of the US automotive industry in the 1980s, but face it: we’re all really here for Brad Dourif hunting a gigantic rat-bat monster in a cavernous textile mill. Based on a short story by Stephen King, this is the kind of movie that was made to be picked up at the video store, with an ominous title, connection to a famous name, and alluringly cheesy key art featuring a skeleton wearing a headlamp.
It does have creepy creature design, gorgeous art direction, and an insanely entertaining performance from Dourif, but it’s ultimately like any great grand Guignol; it’s shocks, comeuppances, and laughs are meant to be howled at with groups of friends more than anything else. If the graphic depictions of mischiefs of rats in King’s OG story makes you feel a wee bit queasy, then Graveyard Shift is set to make you sick. Consider that a horror badge of honor. (Jacob Trussell)
Related Topics: 31 Days of Horror Lists, Horror
