Ratman

The original title of this film is Quella Villa in Fondo al Parco, which translates as The House at the End of the Park. Your first suspicion will probably be that it’s yet another Last House on the Left rip-off, but whilst that’s a good guess, it’s wrong.

What else do you suppose it could be? The house is actually in a forest – nowhere near a park – and it has very little to do with the film’s plot, but that’s about par for the course… well, suppose it’s a rip-off of Lucio Fulci’s The House by the Cemetery?

No. To be fair, however, I doubt you’d be able to guess in a million years, if only because the plot is so ludicrous. Don’t worry, though, because we get all the plot we’ll need, and indeed all the plot we’re going to get, in the opening scene.

It takes place in a dilapidated room, empty aside from a very small amount of scientific equipment and a number of cages containing rats. We hear a voice over -

‘I hereby confirm I will present to the next international genetics congress the new hybrid I have developed by introducing the sperm of a rat into the ovum of a monkey. This hybrid has in its teeth and under its nails a very potent poison, one that produces a kind of instantaneous leptospirosis; its bite or scratch will kill a human being in just a few seconds.’

You’ve got to hand it to them. Not many films will state outright just how silly they are in the first few seconds. Not only that, but the film makers have now ensured that there is no mystery at all about what the film’s monster is, or where it comes from. But wait, it gets better.

( Why would you expect the idiocy to end there?Collapse )