metalrage666 Mulberry Street is your stock standard rat virus that turns people into bloodthirsty idiots movie. Movie starts off a little slow as it introduces the random assortment of characters whose lives are all intertwined by living in a crumbling old New York apartment building. The opening sequence has flashes of rats scampering through pipes, sewers and subways and then focusing their attention on the human world above.Through random news broadcasts we get the story of people on the subway getting bitten by rats and this leads to the shutdown of the subway system and then the gradual quarantine of manhattan. The first we see of the outcome of these infected rat bites is when the aforementioned apartment building super, finds what he thinks is a dead and almost dessicated rat that somehow springs back to life and still has enough strength to bite into his arm. A while later he finds himself growing extra hair and generally feeling uneasy as he starts to transition from poor excuse for a building super into an even poorer excuse for a rat-man. More news broadcasts tell us that the rat bites are spreading and the city hospitals etc are being overrun. Before too long, the city streets become a free-for-all as law and order starts to break down and rat infected people start to randomly attack people, first on the street and then by breaking into homes and anywhere where people are taking refuge. Initially the authorities downplay the increase in rat bites saying that hundreds of people are bitten by rats in New York every day, however they don't start to mutate and kill people. Most of the movie centers around the small apartment block and the survivors holed up in their rooms trying to stay quiet and alive and wait for the military to start operations to sweep the city and rescue them. These recently mutated people have excellent hearing and insatiable appetites and unlike other movies in this genre, they won't just eat humans, we also see cats and other pets being grabbed and killed as anything is considered as food. By the end heavily armed soldiers in biohazard suits storm the buildings one by one and kill anyone who's infected and take into isolation any survivor. From there the movie just ends once most of the main cast has been killed and only a couple of residents who made it to the roof of the building end up being saved. As mentioned, the movie is not without its flaws. Most of the action takes place at night and as this was done on a budget, the filming is of the shaky hand-held camera kind. While this isn't a found footage movie, it plays like it's being filmed in front of an on scene camera crew, with all the running, fighting and horror scenes ending up as a blurry mess of action and with all the darkness and shadows you're hard pressed to work out what exactly is going on. In addition there's no real indication of what started the whole rat plague and there is no ending and no outcome. We have no idea if New York is now a no-go hot zone or if the whole island will need to be fumigated once all humans have been removed as there is no reason to assume the plague will fix itself. There is some indication that the plague/virus may have been deliberately generated as the movie focuses on the fact that lower manhattan is due for redevelopment and the apartment building at the centre of this film has been acquired and all tenants were due to make their respective apartments available for rent re-evaluation, however if most people are dead or relocated out of fear of spreading the virus, then development can proceed unhindered. That's at least what I took from this, of course I could be wrong, and unless they come out with a sequel I'm sticking to it.

mikemdp This movie was so good for the first 45 minutes, I almost wept when the second half went all to hell.Few movies capture the seedy underbelly of New York City in as raw a way. Parts of this movie look almost like they were filmed guerrilla- style. Indeed, in that respect, "Mulberry Street" hearkens back to the glorious '80s films of Frank Hennenlotter.Alas, this is no "Basket Case" or "Brain Damage." Because although director Jim Mickle imbues the film with the same gritty, neon-lit, back-alley feel characteristic of Hennenlotter, his failure is that while Hennenlotter expertly married the surrealism of real-life Manhattan with his bizarre stories and creations, this film, while showing that kind of promise early on, unfortunately has so little confidence in itself it devolves quickly and quite unfortunately into B-movie idiocy.The conceit is wonderful -- a new rat-borne disease is turning New Yorkers into flesh-eating zombies.Wouldn't a "28 Days Later" set in NYC and directed by Frank Hennenlotter be awesome? Keep hoping. Because although it looks like it's going that way for the first half, then the rat people show up.Yes, this rat-borne disease not only makes people zombies, it freakin' turns them into rat people.Ridiculous, pointy-eared, pointy-toothed rat people who squeak like rats and scurry about the floor on all fours.I wanted to weep, seriously weep, halfway through this movie, because when the first rat person showed up after 45 minutes of Hennenlotteresque gritty New York cinematography, interesting camera-work and real, untrained New Yorkers as actors, it felt like I'd found a real super-cool, smart, pretty and sassy girlfriend, and just learned too late she had the clap.Man this one looked like it was gonna be a real good one, too. What a disappointment.

Leofwine_draca This film was retitled ZOMBIE VIRUS ON MULBERRY STREET for its UK DVD release in a bid to draw in fans of the gut-munching undead. Nothing changes the fact that this is a Z-grade horror flick, shot on a shoestring budget with a mainly amateur cast, and one that suffers from shabby writing and an almost entire lack of characterisation.The focus of the film is on a bunch of characters holed up in a run-down apartment building in New York. The characters are differentiated by sight rather than by personality - there's the army girl, the Freddie Mercury lookalike, etc. - and never for a second do you care about what happens to them, which is never good in a film. The only performance I really liked was Kim Blair's, as she successfully manages a mix of toughness and vulnerability in her part.When the zombie outbreak hits, there's a twist - the victims transform into mutant rat creatures rather than the undead, but it's all cheap and shoddy so there's not much interest there. The second half of the film is an interminable mix of running around via shaky cam, hiding in dark rooms, and random zombie attacks. Some have compared this to Danny Boyle's 28 DAYS LATER, but it's nothing like it; the Boyle film was never a chore to sit through.

Woodyanders A mutant strain of rats cause folks who get bitten by the vile vermin to transform into vicious and bloodthirsty rodent-like humanoid beasts. A handful of people residing in a shabby and crumbling New York City apartment complex find themselves in a dire situation when the creatures take over Manhattan. Director/co-writer Jim Mickle relates the gripping story at a brisk pace, does an ace job of creating and sustaining a mounting sense of gloomy flesh-crawling dread, builds a considerable amount of nerve-shredding claustrophobic tension, presents well drawn and credible characters, stages the ferocious attack sequences with real skill and aplomb, makes vivid and flavorsome use of the blighted urban Big Apple setting, and concludes the whole picture on a chillingly bleak note. The fine acting from the able non-star cast rates as another major asset, with stand-out work by Nick Damici as tough former boxer Clutch (Damici also co-wrote the tight and engrossing script), Kim Blair as Clutch's scrappy and resilient Gulf War veteran daughter Casey, Ron Brice as amiable gay Coco, Tim House as grumpy infected superintendent Ross, Bo Corre as no-nonsense barmaid Kay, Larry Fleischman as the cranky, excitable Charlie, Larry Medich as feisty, but ailing old geezer Frank, and John Hoyt as burly, rugged bar owner Big Vic. Popping up in nifty bits are Debbie Rochon as a TV newscaster and Larry Fessenden as some cowardly jerk. The rat people are genuinely gross, creepy, and scary while the startling outbursts of brutal and grisly violence pack a pretty nasty punch. Best of all, the resolutely serious and gritty tone and welcome absence of any needless campy humor ensure that the severity of the horror is served straight up in a pleasingly harsh and uncompromising manner. Ryan Samul's lively hand-held cinematography adds an extra thrilling kinetic buzz. Andreas Kapsalis' shivery score likewise hits the spine-tingling spot. A real sleeper.