Rat Man (1988)

I was not a huge fan of the show Friends, even when it was at its most popular.  Maybe it’s because I was severely inebriated much of the time it was first being shown.  Maybe it’s because these characters and their lifestyle were so alien to me.  Maybe it’s because the show isn’t very good.  Maybe it’s a combination of a multiplicity of factors.  Regardless, there was one bit they did on the show that has always stuck with me, and I still refer to it to this day.  Ditzy blonde Phoebe is talking with smarmy Chandler, and she inquires why Spider-Man isn’t pronounced like Goldman, Silverman, etcetera.  Chandler, astonished by this (more or less his permanent state of being throughout the series), explains that it’s “because it isn’t his last name, like Phil Spiderman.  He’s a Spider…Man.”  I catch myself far too often pronouncing the names of superheroes like Phoebe would, and, even though it’s not laugh out loud funny, I do find it endlessly amusing.  This is possibly the elitist comic book fan in me taking a poke at people who “aren’t in the know” or maybe just taking a poke at elitist comic book fans themselves.  That said, even though Peter Parker is not, in fact, part spider (I’m not as up on the character as I once was, so this may have changed), the little fella dubbed Mousey (Nelson de la Rosa, whom most people know, ironically enough, from the John Frankenheimer/Richard Stanley version of The Island of Dr. Moreau) in Giuliano Carnimeo’s (under the genius pseudonym Anthony Ascot) Rat Man (aka Quella Villa in fondo al Parco, which translates roughly to That Villa at the Bottom of the Park, which may very well be a better title or may simply be the film’s producers desperately trying to cash in on The Last House on the Left sixteen years later; leave it to the Italians to beat a dead horse into glue) most definitely is part rat.  The problem is, he’s also part monkey, so, if anything, the film should have been called Rat Monkey, but I guess that just sounded more like a nature documentary than a horror film.  I would rather watch that fictional documentary than either Friends or Rat Man ever again.

Crusty, sweaty Dr. Olman (Pepito Guerra) is set to unveil Mousey to the world at the next scientician conference when the little rascal makes good his escape.  Next thing you know, bikini models like Marilyn (Eva Grimaldi) are being spied on and chased around, and her sister Terry (the divine Janet Agren) has to team up with perpetually-open-shirted crime writer Fred (David Warbeck) to track her down and save her.  

Rat Man owes the entirety of its existence to two sources.  One is the Slasher film.  On top of Mousey’s natural predilection for murdering people thither and yon accompanied by copious amounts of blood, Carnimeo delights in two types of Slasher-esque shot whenever Mousey is around (which is constantly; this little fucker is more ubiquitous than air).  The first is the classic point of view shot, and, of course, it’s from Mousey’s perspective.  The thing of it is, these POV shots are overused, so they are not nearly as effective as they could be.  Every now and then, it might be nice to build a little tension by not signaling to the audience that the tiny terror is lurking just out of sight.  The second type of shot which is repeated early and often is the extreme closeup.  There are multiple cutaways to a detail of Mousey’s dark, little eyeball.  Later, there are closeups of his fangs and claws as he attacks.  These shots, in my opinion, work better than the flood of POV shots, but even these wear out their welcome and detract from what the audience wants to see, namely, the “critter from the shitter” (that’s part of one of the film’s taglines, and he does, indeed, crawl out of a toilet at one point in the movie) gnawing away at young, pink flesh and innards for minutes on end.

The other major influence on this movie, as you may have guessed, is H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau.  To be more precise, Carnimeo and company ignored the anti-vivisection angle of the novel, focusing on the juicier aspects.  For example, Mousey is a combination of animals in humanoid form.  Dr. Olman walks around in a Panama suit, was shunned by the scientific community for his activities, and cares more about proving the value of his work (the purpose of his experiments is never explained to us) than he does for any living thing.  Olman has a loyal assistant, Tonio, who fills the Montgomery role, though far more incompetently.  Marilyn and skanky photographer Mark (Werner Pochath) come to be at Olman’s villa because of a car wreck instead of a shipwreck, but the effect is the same.  Mousey revolts against Olman and causes havoc on the villa and its occupants, and this is the heart of what the film is in its entirety.  It’s little more than a drawn out, constant stream of “animal” attacks, none of which are suspenseful, and none of which are all that satisfying in the gore department, either.  Why Fred and Terry are in the film at all is mindboggling, since all they do is tool around looking vaguely inquisitive, are flat as a pancake character-wise, and serve no narrative function whatsoever other than to facilitate the indifferently obvious “twist” ending (though, I’ll be honest, I could stare at Agren all day, every day).

I’ve read in several places how this film is supposed to be a sleazy piece of trash.  I can verify the latter half of that statement, but the sleazy part has me confused.  There’s some nudity from Grimaldi, there’s some shitty gore (including a skull sitting in a puddle of what looks like Ragu spaghetti sauce), and Mousey himself certainly appears greasy as all hell.  But outside of that, Rat Man is tame stuff.  Worse than that, it is hardly a movie, as it doesn’t attempt to develop a story in any way.  It’s a very simple idea that, instead of doing anything interesting with, the filmmakers simply padded out with somnolent sequences that don’t go anywhere.  Mousey may be a critter, but perhaps he and this film would have been better off left in the shitter.            

MVT:  I want to give it to Janet Agren, just for being Janet Agren, but I’m going to have to go full-pig and give it to Grimaldi for stripping down and showing off her appreciable assets.

Make or Break:  Probably around the third or fourth time Carnimeo cut back to Terry and Fred driving around in the dark, as if they’re going to find anything remotely interesting in what is the ultimate in cinematic blue balls.

Score:  4.5/10

Karate Rock (1990)

During the opening credits of Larry Ludman’s (aka Fabrizio De Angelis) Karate Rock (aka Il Ragazzo delle Mani D’Acciaio aka The Kid with Iron Hands), a car passes by a Burger King, and the first thing that popped into my head was how appropriate that is.  When I was a boy, fast food was something you got once in a blue moon.  It was a “treat,” not the go-to for every meal of the day.  Fast food was considered trash food.  I suppose it still is, but it’s much more readily accepted as a meal option now.  The same holds true for trash cinema.  It’s probably not “good for you” (yes, I know that sounds snotty), but damn it all, it sure does taste good.  The acceptance of trash cinema has certainly grown over the years from a rather small cult following into a veritable legion or people who devote the entirety of their moviegoing lives to it.  I have no grudge against trash cinema nor against the people who live and breathe it (I would consider myself at least partially in this category).  But I do find myself, from time to time, trying to figure out the “why?” of it’s appeal.  This is something which can be especially confounding when you’re a devotee as well as an observer.  

I’m sure the answer is likely far more complex than any of the films which fall under the trash purview (and definitely more in-depth than I have room for here), but I keep coming back to fast food as the appropriate analogy.  Trash films, even when they drag, when the camerawork is horrible, when the action is less than thrilling, almost always give you at least one moment you won’t see in any other film (or, lacking a specific moment, an attitude).  Just like you can’t get a Burger King burger at McDonald’s and vice versa, you can’t confuse something like 1990: Bronx Warriors with 2019: After the Fall of New York, no matter how hard you try.  In fact, the individual flaws may be the things that make them stand out.  These are films totally concerned with trying to be entertaining.  They don’t care about expanding the vocabulary of filmmaking.  They don’t care about making any cogent statements about the human condition (though, I would argue, they sometimes do despite their best efforts).  They don’t want to suggest anything.  They want to be as plain as the nose on your face (and 99.999% of the time, they are).  Like Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, et al, they all want to sell you a hamburger, fast and cheap, and, most importantly, from one of their franchises.  So, Karate Rock is perhaps the most bonkers ripoff of The Karate Kid ever made, yet it still partly works in spite of itself, but not because of any inherent virtues.  That said, the distinct lack of Elisabeth Shue is truly, truly tragic.

Kevin Foster (Antonio Sabato, Jr) is moved from his Savannah, Georgia home to the small town of Bend because he got into too much trouble for his policeman father John (David Warbeck) to take.  Rooming with the happy-go-lucky Billy (Robert Chan), Kevin runs afoul of local jerkoff Jeff Hunter (Andrew J Parker) and his gang of thugs.  From there on out, it’s nothing but dancing at the local slushie bar and karate-ing (-ish).

As previously stated, the clear and obvious “inspiration” for Karate Rock is 1984’s The Karate Kid.  There is the new kid transplanted to a town where he is all alone and outcast for his background.  There is the young love angle.  There is the karate angle, replete with the old, retired (and retiring) Asian mentor.  There is the gang of young toughs who dominate the protagonist’s life and make it infinitely more difficult.  The thing of it is, Karate Rock has none of the heart of the John G Avildsen film, and it completely misses the whole point of its progenitor.  For the first part, there are still all the setups we expect from this story, and they all turn out exactly as one can predict.  Nonetheless, there is no connective tissue to get us there.  There is no development of the characters, from the top down, to make us care about anything that happens to any of them.  Kevin is practically a doorstop who keeps getting in Jeff’s face just to make himself feel bigger and salve his own pride.  Billy offers no wisdom or insight into how Kevin can better himself until he decides to train him (he does get a half-assed back story, however).  Conny (Dorian D Field), the girl next door, never shares a heartfelt moment with Kevin, and she pathetically keeps trying to change herself to match Jeff’s hotty girlfriend Kim (Natalie J Hendrix) rather than showing Kevin (and the audience) anything unique she has to offer.  John behaves more like Kevin’s parole officer than his father, and there is no depth to their relationship for a reconciliation to mean anything.  These are warm bodies occupying spaces until it’s time for them to do something.

For the second part, this film has nothing to do with self-discovery or conquering one’s fears.  This is because it is entirely shot through a thick, oily filter of pure Italian machismo.  Kevin wants Kim because she’s beautiful, and, according to various moments between her and Jeff, she puts out.  Conny flings herself at Kevin because he’s hot, not because he is in any way distinctive.  And Kevin frankly couldn’t give a shit about Conny until he needs her, anyway.  The impetus for Kevin’s martial arts training has nothing to do with improving himself.  He’s doing it just to get revenge on Jeff for publicly kicking his ass multiple times (and never mind that Kevin names Kim as the prize for the winner of their climactic showdown, something she protests not in the least).  Billy’s decision to teach Kevin has nothing to do with anything other than that he’s an old Asian guy who knows karate (and the training montage is not only substandard in its techniques [read: no “wax on, wax off” stuff] but also mindboggling in its intercutting with shots of Jeff dancing at the slushie bar), and there is no thought given to the ideals and philosophy of martial arts.  It’s strictly used here to beat the shit out of people.  Finally, just to keep the viewer even more off-balance, the whole inner turmoil that Kevin has completely not been struggling with for the entire movie is his desire to be accepted by his old man, which he does by beating up a couple of kids (wasn’t that part of the reason he was taken away from his home in the first place?).  The whole film is like getting Chinese noodles and putting pesto sauce on them.  Yes, it’s still noodles and sauce, and it tastes fine, but it is not in any way what you expect.  And that’s without even getting into all of the disco dancing that takes place to music I could have whipped up at twelve-years-old on my Casio SK-1.

MVT:  The pure wrongheadedness of De Angelis’ approach and the bizarre view that the Italian filmmakers had of American life.

Make or Break:  The “rock dance” competition.  It’s one for the ages in so many ways.

Score:  6.75/10