Director: Scott Jeffrey, Shannon Holiday
Year: 2021
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
After a strange animal attack, a detective finds himself drawn to a woman with ties to the case and tries to balance not just his burgeoning relationship with her but also the clues detailing the proof about the attacks being conducted by a giant, mutated rat created by her husband.
Review:
Overall, this was a decent enough take on the genre. Among the better features with this one comes from the cheesy and workable features throughout here that manage to bring bout the kind of effective monster-on-the-loose mayhem this excels at. The opening setup involving the doctor coming to realize his creation has turned against him and gets loose in the community, before beginning the officer’s relationship with the wife of the doctor who created the killer rat, makes for a serviceable way of getting everything going here. It serves nicely to get the killer rat’s background explained as the result of his experimentation, as well as getting the usual assortment of useless police officers trying to use his relationship status to make him unreliable at helping them on the case, all of which make for a generally solid setup here.
With that established, the film’s attempt at getting the creature loose in the city offers up the kind of worthwhile and wholly enjoyable cheese creature feature attacks. The opening ambush at the doctor’s house that offers to bring the creature’s escape about with him overriding the doctor and ripping him to pieces, while later scenes featuring the creature attacking the lone woman in the alleyway, ambushing the policeman at the wife’s secret summerhouse hiding spot, or confronting the mechanic in the garage are cheesy enough sequences featuring the viciousness and brutality of the rat to full force. It all highlights the major setpiece here where the creature appears at a crowded restaurant and goes crazy, ripping staff and patrons to pieces, ripping their intestines out, or just generally causing chaos at a time when no one knows what’s going on, so everything here comes off with that extra bit of mayhem this genre thrives on. The big finale involving the main attack on the house, which includes not just plenty of fun action and some nice reveals but also lets the cheesy effects come to pass, is immensely fun and comes together to give this a lot to like about it.
There isn’t much to dislike here, but it does have a few small factors. The main detriment to be had here is the continued insistence on trying to bring up the policeman’s ex-wife as a source of strife and conflict when the story doesn’t need it. This was working fine with the main idea involving the team trying to track down the creature without letting word get out to the public about it being a mutant rat, while he tries to balance a new relationship with a potential witness in the case, and to then constantly bring up the idea of the old relationship he used to have with someone else feels redundant and unnecessary when she’s not involved in the creatures’ attacks. As well, there’s also the usual amount of cheesy low-budget creature make-up and gore effects present, which constantly give away what type of film this really is, lowering this one overall.
Overview: ***.5/5
A really enjoyable cheesy creature feature, there’s a lot to this one that manages to work really well in this style, while only being let down by some minor elements overall. Those with an interest in this style or approach or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, while most others out there might want to heed caution.
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