Rat Fink

There just aren't many films about psychotic folk-rockers, but this long thought-lost 1965 psychodrama blazes that trail. Schuyler Hayden portrays a mentally disturbed young musician who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. The film is a low-budget affair, but director James "THE SADIST" Landis and the soon-to-be-famous cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond have crafted an edgy portrait of narcissism run rampant.

Aside from the expressionistic B&W cinematography, Ronald Stein's pulsating rock 'n' roll score contributes nervous energy to the events on screen. The music is somewhat reminiscent of the great "orchestral rockabilly" score that accompanied the car chases in Robert Mitchum's THUNDER ROAD.

Like 1960's PRIVATE PROPERTY (which also disappeared from the marketplace in the mid-1960's), RAT FINK has been unearthed more than 50 years after its final drive-in theater engagement. It's great to have these long-unseen films resurface on Blu-ray.

I have mixed feelings about this movie, it is not too slow, not too fast but somehow you still feel strange. Schuyler Haydn made just one other movie before he died in a plane crash, so this movie has also a historical value. Schuyler Haydn looks perfect in the role of psychotic folk-rocker. I think what disturb me the most is the nice-bad boy, in my personal opinion, the most shaking personification of devil in movie and in reality. The movie is doing a good job in showing the evil in such a way that you will never want to encounter such a thing in your whole life. The other similar nice but bad evil impersonation, that I found also disturbing, is Mark Pellegrino in Lucifer role from Supernatural series. Evil as bad is easy to understand but evil as nice is hard to comprehend. This is the feeling that I had during the movie and it is hard to believe it was done during the '60. It is not boring and somehow manage to have the same speed from the beginning to the end, showing how a life with bad decisions can end up in only one way. Of course, all with some of the era exaggerations in acting but will be easy to forget because are only short moments. The scene between the main personage and his father has some deep dialog. In current times, we see such a scene usually at the end of the movie so you may wonder what the movie has still to show after this point, I will let you to discover and you will not be disappointed. I think is a good movie that had never had a change to be a hit because of the nice evil personification, watch it not for entertainment but for having a meditation about evil in life and a travel to the '60.

I know this is a 'lost movie' and not easily found, but despite its exploitation roots it is about a million times more interesting than anything new out there. It is entertaining, gritty, filmed in a 'noir' style and features an 'abortion' sequence that is horrifying and insanely funny at the same time. Any fans of Harlan Ellison's Rockabilly/Spider Kiss out there? This is a very similar story and I suspect built on the same careers and rumors that holllywood insiders would have known at the time.

The acting is good for a b flick, I came to see it because of the Arch Hall film this team made before this. The cinematography is well done, and there are some repeats of motifs in shots and lighting such as fractured mirror images and swinging/staccato light that reflect the brokenness of the character(s).

Too cool for school and ahead of it's time.