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Rats: Night of Terror - Deluxe LImited Edition
[Blu-ray 4K]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - 88 Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (16th August 2025). |
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The Film
 Two hundred years "After the Bomb" when a nuclear holocaust sent all human life below ground and a hundred years after a faction known as the "New Primitives" split from the underground society's authoritarian rule to scavenge the wasteland above ground, a biker gang led by Kurt (Zombie's "worm face" Ottaviano Dell'Acqua), girlfriend Diana (Absurd's Cindy Leadbetter), Taurus (Zombi 3's Massimo Vanni), and Chocolate (Demons' Geretta Geretta) rides into a ghost town looking for supplies. In spite of a large rat population and several rodent-gnawed rotting corpses, they think they have found a gold mine with crates full of canned food and pantry goods and a computer-run greenhouse in the basement full of plant species that could no longer survive above ground and a high-tech water filtration system discovered by Noah (Cindy – Cinderella '80's Christian Fremont) and Video (Raiders of Atlantis' Gianni Franco). Kurt decides that the scientists running the facility must have killed each other so they decide to settle in the town despite the misgivings of the gang's wise man Deus (Terror Express' Fausto Lombardi). After dark, however, the rats come out of hiding with a craving for human flesh. As more of the gang vanish – starting with Lucifer (The Sweet House of Horrors' Jean-Christophe Brétignière) and Lilith (Moune Duvivier) who separate from the group for some loud lovemaking, a power struggle erupts between Kurt and ruthless Duke (Malombra's Henry Luciani) who covets the lovely Myrna (Hanna D. - The Girl From Vondel Park's Ann-Gisel Glass). As Deus and Video learn more about the research project, they surmise that something terrible must have happened below ground but the rodents once forced out of their subterranean nesting ground have adapted and evolved in more ways than the survivors can conceive. One of roughly two dozen Italian exploitation films co-directed by editor-turned-director Bruno Mattei (Emanuelle's Revenge) as "Vincent Dawn" and screenwriter Claudio Fragasso (Troll 2) – with Fragasso sometimes uncredited or sometimes the two under the joint pseudonym "Stefan Oblowsky" – starting with the back-to-back nunsploitation duo The True Story of the Nun of Monza and The Other Hell and the Dawn of the Dead ripoff Hell of the Living Dead, Rats: Night of Terror is a mishmash of eco-horror animals attack films and the Mad Max post-apocalyptic cycle of Italian horror films that were quickly going out of fashion in 1984. While it has entertaining elements including sets that look like they were left over from a spaghetti western, the biker gang's costumes seemingly like they raided the studio's wardrobe department, and some gnarly gore by Maurizio Trani (Dawn of the Mummy) and Mattei/latter day Lucio Fulci-regular Giuseppe Ferranti (Cat in the Brain), the film drags and the cast large enough to provide an adequate horror movie body count are given little to do despite some familiar faces. The photography of Franco Delli Colli (Zeder) is undistinguished and the scoring of Luigi Ceccarelli (Nosferatu in Venice) consists of one action synth cue and a lot of organ chords underlining the more "Gothic" haunted house elements. There is only so much that can be done with spray-painted lab rats – it is obvious some of them are simply thrown at actors and one poor thing (and this is coming from someone who hates rats) is sewn to the wig of a stuntman in a fire suit – while they generally look docile crawling around the set or are represented as a horde in the form of obvious toy rats on a conveyor belt. The wonderfully absurd ending, however, must be seen to be believed. An Italian/French co-production, the film's editing credit goes to Gilbert Kikoïne (Night of the Hunted) which might be a quota credit – although he hand plenty of experience working under his editor-turned-porn-and-mainstream-director father Gérard Kikoïne (Edge of Sanity) while golden age Italian horror star Walter Brandi (Playgirls and the Vampire) served as production supervisor. 
Video
Released theatrically in the U.S. by Film Concept Group (Burial Ground, The Craving) and then on darkish VHS by Lightning Video in the eighties and not until the nineties in the U.K., Rats: Night of Terror got a nice 16:9 upgrade early in the DVD era from Anchor Bay which was subsequently reissued by Blue Underground in the U.S. while U.K. viewers had to contend with a non-anamorphic Vipco release. The film made its Blu-ray debut stateside in 2014 from Blue Underground in a double feature with Hell of the Living Dead (the transfer of which was missing frames at every shot change) and the same master was used for 88 Films' 2018 Blu-ray. While Hell of the Living Dead made its 4K debut from 88 Films in the U.K. before Severin Films' U.S. 4K/Blu-ray/CD limited edition (and separate 4K/Blu-ray and Blu-ray standard editions), Rats: Night of Terror debuted earlier this year from Severin as a website-exclusive 4K/Blu-ray/CD soundtrack combo followed by 4K/Blu-ray and Blu-ray standard editions followed by 88 Films' U.K. 4K/Blu-ray combo (a single-dsic Blu-ray edition is also available). The 2160p24 HEVC 1.85:1 Dolby Vision and 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen discs may or may not come from the same underlying 4K raw scan of the original camera negative as Severin's but the grading is different with or without HDR, with the 88 Films grade looking overall slightly brighter while preserving the film's moody lighting. The saturation is a touch lighter, giving a different sense to some of the textures; for instance, Kurt's pants looked like gray-black leather in the Severin but look more like brown denim in the 88 Films grade. The green glow of the underground lab is still unnatural but not quite as "alien". The rat close-ups make all the more apparent that their fur has been dyed and is even running and smearing their environments while the slightly dialed-back grade does allow a better assessment of the film's gore which is lingered upon less than that of Hell of the Living Dead. 
Audio
Audio options include English and Italian LPCM 2.0 mono tracks with, respectively, optional English SDH and English subtitles. The tracks are clean enough with Ceccarelli's synth theme having a bit of presence amid flatter-sounding foley effects. The English track features a lot of familiar voices from Italian horror English dubbing while the Italian track just seems more somber despite the dialogue being equally absurd due to the delivery. 
Extras
The 4K disc only includes the film, the film's theatrical trailer (2:09) and an audio commentary by Italian Cinema Experts Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth in which they discuss the collaborations between Mattei and Fragasso including the division of labor with Mattei focusing on the technical while Fragasso worked on the script and directed the actors. While msot Euro horror viewers are aware of Mattei's earlier career as an editor, Ercolani discusses Fragasso's earlier credits as a screenwriter as well as his more artistic directorial efforts. They also reveal that Rats: Night of Terror was the first film on which Fragasso got a separate co-director credit and that it was also the time that their relationship was starting to fray with Fragasso wanting to do his own projects (although they would continue to work together in both Italy, the United States, and the Philippines into the late eighties under producer Franco Gaudenzi). The pair also discuss the film's hybridizing of different genres and provide background on the cast whose faces might be more familiar than their Anglicized names in the credits and also reveal that part of the cost-effectiveness of the production was being able to reuse a large set built for Sergio Leone's protracted production of Once Upon a Time in America with the skylit sleeping quarters being the same set in which the Leone film introduces Jennifer Connelly's character doing her ballet dance.  The Blu-ray includes the film, trailer, and commentary as well as six new interviews – five of which had previously been excerpted for the documentary Ercolani created for the French Blu-ray from boutique Pulse Video but are presented in longer form here – starting with "Rat King" (38:16), an interview with co-director Fragasso who recalls meeting Mattei in an editing suite not far from the convent in which they would shoot the two back-to-back nunsploitation films with Mattei expressing familiarity with the nineteenth century Alessandro Manzoni novel about the nun of Monza and being surprised that Mattei wanted to do an erotic version. Fragasso discusses their joint contributions to the films on which they worked together, with Fragasso coming to understand the importance of editing while also being frustrated with Mattei's belief that anything can be saved in post-production. He also discusses the film, his relationships with the cast, and the difficulty of making dyed mice scary (in spite of this, Eduard Sarlui asked him on the basis of the film to write and direct Monster Dog with Alice Cooper). New to this release is "Deus Knows Best" (24:37), an interview with actor Lombardi who recalls previously working with Fragasso on the latter's solo directorial effort Difendimi dalla Notte, working on Rats: Night of Terror and subsequently with Fragasso, Mattei, and Geretta on Shocking Dark, going to America where he took acting classes and learned about building characters, and looking back on his Italian exploitation films a bit envious of Geretta who is proud of her work in the genre. "Meet Myrna and Lucifer" (21:25) is a joint interview with actors Glass and Brétignière in which both recall how they ended up in Italy and winding up with the same agent, with Brétignière slightly more fluent in Italian appointed as Glass' interpreter. The recall working with the directors, their fellow cast members, particularly Duvivier whose mother was on the set and was quite young when they filmed her sex scene with Brétignière taking abuse off camera from Fragasso and Mattei for holding back, as well as their recollections of the treatment of the live rats on the set. "The 3rd Rat" (20:30) is an interview with assistant director and still photographer Giovanni Leacche (Caligula and Messalina) who was a jack of all trades in the film business from still photographer and assistant director to camera operator as well as a renowned portrait photographer of Italian stars. He also had a camera shop when he met Mattei who became one of his clients and followed the entire production of Rats: Night of Terror recalling Fragasso on the set eighty-percent of the time. "Squeaky Melodies" (19:25) is an interview with composer Ceccarelli who recalls the "rigidity of classical training" and being more interested in picking up what was necessary than getting a diploma, playing in bands and meeting Fragasso when he was making 8mm films and volunteering to score one of his works. He recalls the difficulty in getting producers to budget for the scoring as well as both the ease and limitations of working with electronic instruments, as well as working in both art house and genre film, noting that the art house directors often had clear ideas of what they wanted from scores while the genre directors were less specific but he liked the constant work. "Rat Droppings Falling on my Head" (15:26) who recall working with Mattei and Fragasso on their productions in the Phillipines – along with Fulci on Zombi 3 (neither were present in the scenes Mattei and Fragasso shot to extend the film's running time) – and also recall both Mattei and Fragasso directing on Rats: Night of Terror including Mattei's constant cries of "More mice!" whereupon the prop master would empty buckets of dyed lab mice on the actors, as well as noting that a new breed of rat had evolved from the rodents that escaped the set and mated with the ones from Dario Argento's Inferno (also shot on the De Paolis sets). The theatrical trailer (2:09) is also included. 
Packaging
The limited edition comes in a rigid slipcase with a reversible cover, collectible art card, and forty-page booklet with writing by Rachael Nisbet, James Oliver, and Francesco Massaccesi, none of which has been supplied for review.
Overall
A mishmash of eco-horror and post-apocalyptic genres, the silly Rats: Night of Terror is latter day Italian exploitation as only Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso could bring us.
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