Director: Giuliano Carnimeo (as Anthony Ascott)
Year: 1988
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Quella villa in fondo al parco
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Arriving on a tropical island, a woman begins looking for her missing sister, who was on a photoshoot in the area, and teams up with a visiting crime writer to figure out what happened, eventually stumbling upon a hybrid human/rat mutation behind the incidents, and must stop it.
Review:
This was a decidedly fine cheesy genre effort. Among the better elements present with this one is the generally likable and worthwhile mystery angle that goes on in the first half, which manages to bring together some rather intriguing enough factors. The main setup involves the group of models out on their shoot and slowly disappearing one by one when they encounter the strange rat-like creature created by the scientific experiments, which brings the sister along to check out what happened, which all comes together rather well. The investigation into what happened brings her and the writer together to check out the various bodies left behind which they constantly keep misidentifying as the missing sister keeps this going along rather well, while the secondary notion of the remaining photographer and model encountering the creature and his creator in their jungle mansion hideout gives this a nice connection to everything going on by crossing back and forth to these various storylines.
Following up on this setup, the film manages to effectively utilize the storyline to provide a solid series of encounters and confrontations. Given that there’s a fun backstory into the creature’s connection to the island that gives everything a nice bit of coincidental connections, the different ambush scenes featuring the diminutive being appearing out of the shadows and using his size to sneak attack unsuspecting adult victims in locations throughout the island, from the jungle sequences involving the dwindling photography crew, the scenes in the abandoned ruins out in the jungle, or the later scenes in the doctor’s mansion where it chews through the staff to get revenge on the doctor in some rather brutal sequences. With the constant screeching in the background and the attempts at offering up an atmospheric touch to the whole thing on top of some cheesy gore effects, there are some likable factors to this one.
There are some big issues here keeping this one down. The biggest issue with the film is the main killer creature, which is one of the least imposing or threatening villains in the genre, where hardly anything about it is frightening. The physical appearance makes it look immensely cheesy and comical with how bad the make-up job is, the fact that it’s barely two feet tall, and supposedly able to overcome and overpower full-sized adults is never in the slightest bit believable, so it just makes everything all the sillier when it occurs. The other factor here is the seemingly bizarre ending that tries to paint this as some kind of apocalyptic showdown that was prominent in the genre at the time, which is instead handled in such a cheesy manner that it comes off rather silly and again speaks to the unimposing nature of this one more than anything, being all that holds this one down.
Overview: ***/5
A curious enough if somewhat problematic genre outing, there’s enough to like here to be somewhat worthwhile while still having some major issues here that hold this one down overall. Those with an interest in the subject matter, who appreciate this kind of cheesy genre fare, or who don’t mind the issues here, will want to give it a shot, while most others might want to heed caution.
This review is part of our ongoing series of reviews for Italian Horror Month, every November on the site:
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