Sam Panico In the Christian year 2015, the insensitivity of man finally triumphs and hundreds of atomic bombs devastate all five continents. Terrified of the slaughter and destruction, the few survivors of the disaster seek refuge under the ground. From that moment begins the era that will come to be called "after the bomb" - the period of the second human race. A century later, several men, dissatisfied with the system imposed on them by the new humanity, choose to revolt and live on the surface of the Earth as their ancestors did. So, yet another race begins, that of the new primitives. The two communities have no contact for a long period. The humans still living below ground are sophisticated and despise the primitives, regarding them as savages. This story begins on the surface of the Earth in the year 225 A.B. (After the Bomb)Rats the Night of Terror begins with a punk gang investigating a mysterious town. Let's meet the folks we're going to spend the next 105 minutes with. Kurt and Taurus (Massimo Vanni, Warriors of the Wasteland) share the leadership responsibilities, but Duke really wants to take over. Then there's Chocolate (Geretta Geretta from Demons), a poorly named black woman who gets flour all over herself and dances around while yelling, "I'm whiter than you!" Obviously Italian directors in 1984 were not yet "woke." Lucifer and Lilith are, of course, a couple. At least she has plenty of fashion sense, traveling through the end of days wearing a cape and fedora. Noah is the resident genius, while Video is an expert at video games. Yep, that's why they brought him along, despite the fact that there are no video games left. Deus has a shaved head with a strange symbol, is given to mystic rantings and has on one of The Warriors' vests. Finally, we have Diana, who wears a studded headband and is the girlfriend of Barry Gibb lookalike Kurt, and Myrna, whose scream is ready to reduce your eardrums to quivering masses of cartilage.Surprisingly, the gang finds plenty of food in this town. Of course, they also discover plenty of mutilated bodies and lots of rats. But at least the town looks nice, maybe because it's the same set as Once Upon a Time in America.Why aren't the rats eating the food? Look, this was written and directed by Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso, so you better be ready to throw logic into the cold, dead void of space. What else can you expect from the team that brought you Zombie 3, The Other Hell, Robowar and Emanuelle Escapes from Hell? And you may also know Fragasso from another film that makes perfect sense, Troll 2. Just like that film, which has nothing to do with the movie it succeeds, this was billed as the third part of Enzo G. Castellari's Bronx Warriors series. Again - check logical storytelling at la porta.Luckily for our heroes, they discover a hydroponic growing system that's made the kindest bud ever known to man. Just kidding - the crops are fruit, vegetables and plants, along with purified water.Night falls and everyone goes to sleep in the same room. Lilith and Lucifer have sex while everyone else either watches or performs their signature character move, such as polishing a guitar or meditating. Our young lovers get stuck in their sleeping bag while everyone laughs at them, using that hearty guffaw that only Italian dubbed voices can perform. Lilith ends up deciding not to have any more sex - her Southern accent is beyond reproach - and Lucifer stalks off, while she zips herself back into that troublesome sleeping bag.That's when our merry band discovers that while they may have dressed for a Road Warrior ripoff, they took a wrong turn at Barter Town and ended up in a slasher film.Even after the bombs drop, you should know better than to have sex in one of these affairs. That means we can cross our demonically named couple. He just falls into a hole of rats whereas she gets stuck in that cursed sleeping bag as rats climb in. When the rest of the crew discovers her, a rat climbs out from her mouth in a scene that's sure to make you either laugh uncontrollably, puke out your last meal or some combination thereof.I just had a flash - the way everyone is dressed in this film, including Kurt in his white shirt and red ascot, it's as if the Scooby Gang tried to escape New York. The costumes in this film are fabulous! Good work, Elda Chinellato!This film sets new standards for rats killing humans. How do they achieve such special effects? One assumes that someone was off camera, just tossing rodents at the unfortunate cast. Well, one doesn't have to assume, because that's pretty much exactly what happened, PETA be damned.Meanwhile, Noah gets attacked by rats, so they decide to scare the rodents off with a flamethrower. Bad idea, unless you enjoy barbecuing your friends. Then, they discover that the rats have eaten their tires off of their motorcycles. How did they do such a thing? What do you mean they cut the power? How could they cut the power, man? They're animals!Myrna continues to scream at any and every opportunity while our heroes barricade themselves into the building and wonder, "Has there ever been worse dubbing in a film?" No, my friends. No, there has not. Instead of just asking you rhetorically to imagine the diseases a rat can give you, this film lists them at length.Who is the biggest enemy? Duke or the rats? Well, Duke may be shooting at them with a machine gun, but he hasn't eaten anyone from within yet. The good guys keep giving Duke chance after chance, even after he's more than proved that he's a ne'er do well. Eventually, he blows himself up and Myrna up real good.Diana just can't take it any longer, so she slits her wrists. Then, Video learns that the building they're hiding in was an experimental station for something called return to light. Also, the rats are super intelligent and see this place as an affront."This is worse than being dead," says Kurt, while he sashays in his little pirate costume.Have you ever thought, "It must be really fun to be an actor?" Then you weren't in this movie. For the entire running time, giant piles of rats are poured everywhere and anywhere and on just about everyone.The rats finally try to break the door down to the control room and all hell breaks loose. Meanwhile, these guys in yellow hazmat suits and masks from The Crazies start walking through the streets.Deus is killed by Myrna's corpse and even Kurt is killed by a bunch of rats that fly at him from every angle. Video and Chocolate are then saved by the people in the hazmat suits, who have been gassing all of the rats. Here's where Rats: The Night of Terror unveils its shock ending. The hazmat guys are the people from Delta 2. Chocolate then says to one of her rescuers, ""Once, someone told me they read in a book that we all lived on the Earth together, that we were all brothers.The book was called the Bible, and it said that God created man and animals." The leader of the men takes off his mask and he's no man at all - he's a human rat!It's a twist ending that isn't explained and doesn't make any sense at all! It would be like Peyton Farquhar shat his pants at the end of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge instead of getting lynched!Rats: The Night of Terror isn't a good movie. But it's a great movie. A movie that you can tell people about and they'll say, "That's not a real movie." But it is. It totally is.

Scott LeBrun As cheesy, cruddy Italian post-apocalypse cinema goes, "Rats: Night of Terror" is constantly amusing and certainly NOT ever boring. It has enough uproarious moments to make it quite an acceptable diversion, and some brilliant lines (ex. "I'm gonna warm their whiskers!"). The story (credited to director Bruno Mattei) deals with a roving gang that comes upon an abandoned complex where they get inundated with rats that are more voracious, aggressive, and intelligent than normal. In order to ensure their own survival, they determine to make it an unsafe world for the rodent population. Good fun all the way for its decently paced 97 minutes, it seems to suggest that the best way to survive a post-apocalypse future is to go underground. Luigi Ceccarelli's electronic score is a hoot to listen to, just like much of the dialogue. The dubbing and vocal performances, as is often the case for this sort of thing, are just hysterical, with the on screen performers gamely going with the flow of this material. It's extremely cool to note that leading actor Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, billed as Richard Raymond for English language prints, is the man behind the infamous "worm eye" zombie from Lucio Fulci's "Zombi 2". Besides Dell'Acqua, people will also recognize Geretta Geretta (billed as Janna Ryann) from Lamberto Bava's "Demoni". The funniest performance comes from Henry Luciani as Duke, what with his facial expressions. Wonderful gags include a rat emerging from a victim's mouth. The overall mood and feel of "Rats: Night of Terror" is a great study in decay and despair, and pretty much everybody in this cast of characters is fair game for a hideous demise. And the movie rewards all viewers who stick it out to the end with a priceless final revelation they won't soon forget. Don't listen to the naysayers...at least give this goofy bit of Euro escapism a chance. It may be of the endearingly bad kind of experience, but for this viewer it wasn't so bad it was good. It was so bad it was a RIOT. Eight out of 10.

Aaron1375 The other Bruno Mattei film that I have seen is "Night of the Zombies" aka "Hell of the Living Dead" aka "Virus" and another couple of names. When I saw that film first it was under the title "Night of the Zombies", though in that film most of the zombie action took place in broad daylight. Here the title fits as nearly the entire film occurs at night, at least most of the rat action. This film is also a better quality movie than "Hell of the Living Dead", however, you will notice I gave that one a four and this one a three. Let me explain. One, I like zombie movies better and while that one is certainly a zombie flick this is a killer critter movie. Two, that one was a bit more fun to watch for me. While this one looked better on film and did not have any horrid stock footage, this one just did not grab me like that movie. Though both movies have a bit in common in that both of them end rather good. In "Hell of the Living Dead" you see a really good zombie attack in a park or something at the end which was better than most of the film. This one too ends quite well albeit a bit annoyingly as it sets up questions that will never get answered. Loved how that thing looked at the end as it looked rather creepy especially the eyes. On to the plot, it is 225 AB. What is AB you ask, well it means after the bomb. Yes, it is a post apocalyptic film about survivors roaming the surface looking for food and such. And what a group it is! The gals all look like they came straight from an MTV music video of that era and the guys are a mixed crowd though a couple of em have beards. This group is on the look out for food and in the rest of the film while they try to survive the night of rats one will wonder how the heck have these morons survived up until now? Seriously, they find food in this strange well made up little town like place. Buildings all around, but hey there is sugar and flour and lots and lots of rats. Well, you know the drill and from the title of this film it is fair to say I am not spoiling anything when I say the rats soon go after the humans to consume their flesh! Would have been better with more gore, perhaps a bit more nudity and more rats! I know, there are quite a few, but one never really gets the impression that these people are truly being overwhelmed. There are also one to many scenes of what looks like stuffed rats being dropped on the heads of our actors. The infighting was completely unnecessary and seemed to come out of nowhere and then there is the girl who gets bitten and hangs around only to die in rather retarded fashion. Also, what was with the girl in the cape? In the post apocalyptic future girls will either have big hair or wear a phantom of the opera cape apparently. So while it was still bad, it was rather entertaining to watch, just not quite as entertaining as "Hell of the Living Dead" another of Mattei's masterpieces.

Red-Barracuda Ah, these were the days for sure. Rats is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror by the one and only Bruno Mattei. If you've seen anything else by this guy you will no doubt know exactly what to expect. You'll be aware that you are going to see a shoddy but enjoyable trash-fest with many laugh-out-loud moments of unintentional humour. This film is full of typical Matteisms. It's ram-packed with extreme over-acting, over-the-top maniacal laughter, stupid chat and atrocious dubbing. It's got lots of gore, comically unthreatening monsters and moments of alarming non-political correctness. It's unashamedly derivative and incurably cheesy. And yet despite - or perhaps because - of all this, its loads of fun.Like many bad films there is a scrolling text introduction. This is an easy way for cheap-skate film-makers to give us the background story and context without having to go to the trouble of conveying this information cinematically. Anyway, it basically boils down to the fact that the Earth is scorched after a nuclear war and some people live underground, while others live on the surface. A band of the latter pitch up at an abandoned settlement and discover that the previous inhabitants had been killed by super-intelligent nasty rats. Guess what happens next.In a lot of horror films the most interesting characters are the villains and monsters. Not in this film. The rats for the most part act in a completely indifferent manner. This of course makes for some very funny moments when our heroes act as if they are a terrifying threat. A couple of such scenes spring to mind. Firstly when the gang mount a set of stairs covered in rats, the implication is that this is a super-scary moment, while the reality for all to see is that not only do the rodents pose no hazard whatsoever, they also are actually actively hiding away. Secondly, the scene where the leader of the gang wards off the hordes of rats with a flaming torch is properly silly as not only are the creatures a good twenty metres away in a small utterly unthreatening group but they also approach the flaming stick with zero concern when it is finally thrown on the deck. Prior to this silly scene, we are treated to what can only be described as the rat conveyor belt. This somewhat incredible cinematic device is a 'special effect' created for the film that is evidently supposed to suggest hordes of scary rodents moving forward menacingly. It doesn't. It looks like a conveyor belt with 2D rat-shaped cut outs stuck on it. It's quite something else. It does have to also be said that seeing as this is an Italian production there are a number of scenes where the rats are quite obviously getting battered or burned. They are thrown at actors, kicked by actors, have heavy objects thrown at them and set on fire by flamethrowers. With this in mind I'm very surprised this one got a BBFC certificate to tell you the truth.In all honesty the gang are a lot more memorable that the rodents. One of them is called Video. He is supposed to be a computer genius, yet he says things like 'stupid machine needs a kick in the balls'. Another character called Deus is supposed to be the brains of the bunch as he has a shaved head with a little triangle drawn on it. At one point he goes into a long spiel about how rats lived in the days before the War. He qualifies his rambling rubbish with the line 'I read it in a book'. He says it so ludicrously portentously that it is laugh-out-loud funny. The only black character is a woman called, wait for it, Chocolate. At one point she covers herself in flour and says something along the lines of 'I'm white like the rest of you, ha ha ha'. Right on baby. The final character I shall draw your attention to is a guy called Duke. He is the villain of the group and is relatively unremarkable. Until is death that is, when he stands in an armoured vehicle with a grenade and then notices that there are some rats in the car with him, so he does what any sane person would do – he throws the grenade at them and blows himself up.If you haven't already worked out then I have to say that this film was a bit of a comedy classic. It mixes cheap sci-fi with gory horror and levels it all off with a dollop of unintentional stupidity. It's a riot. And wait until you see the ending. If you thought things could not get any more ridiculous, you are in for a treat.