Willard

This movie scared the pants off me as a kid - literally! Now I like rat movies as much as the next guy, but this one was CREEEEEPY! I suppose it was Ernest Borgnine's performance as Mr. Martin, Willard's boss, that made the whole movie so disturbing. It's so creepy because it's true! I once had a boss who reminded me of Ernest Borgnine, but fortunately I never tried to bring my pet rat to work with me!

Anyway, here's my advice - if you like rat movies, or movies with Ernest Borgnine, then see "Willard" tonight. If you DON'T like Ernest Borgnine and you DON'T like rat movies, then maybe "Willard" is not for you. I don't want to give any more of the plot away, but IF you do decide to watch "Willard", make sure you don't see it alone!

A little flick that blends elements of psycho-drama and animals-run-amuck, along with a hint of old-dark-house. Willard is a socially-maladjusted young man who lives in a gloomy, Victorian house with his co-dependant mother. Their relationship constitutes the weird part of the movie, nudge, nudge. Willard is tolerantly allowed employment at his late father's business, presided over by passive-agressive Ernest Borgnine. With no social life and no friends, Willard resorts to training rats with above-average intelligence. Of course, things take a dark turn when Willard's mother dies and Borgnine's bully tendencies come to the fore, prompting the put-upon Willard to use his rodent buddies to even the score. Also on hand is Sondra Locke as caring co-worker who tries to enter into Willard's world and may be his means of salvation. You find yourself rooting for her to win out. Spawned a more (in)famous sequel, BEN, remembered primarily for it's theme song, which provided Michael Jackson with one of his first solo hits. Very appropriate, in hindsight.

Bruce Davison plays Willard, a repressed 29 year old with no social life outside of his mother (Elsa Lanchester) and her loudmouthed friends who constantly nitpick everything about him and tell him why he's never amounted to anything. Even worse, his boss (Ernest Borgnine at his nastiest) stole the company from Willard's deceased father and seems intent on running it into the ground and never giving Willard a chance to take over. Everything changes when he befriends a few rats he finds in his home and he realizes that he has the power to force them to do his bidding. It looks like everyone who ever doubted or wished ill will of Willard is about to get what's coming to them.

More psychological character study than outright horror film, Willard is blessed with a strong script with great characters and wonderful performances all around. If you're here for big shocks, jump scares, or buckets of blood, I'd suggest looking elsewhere, because this movie barely even earns its PG rating. What keeps it interesting are the characters and their human drama. If that sounds like something you might be interested in, then I highly recommend this movie.

A mousy, introverted young man befriends and teaches rats basic commands. Soon his home and life are preoccupied with this rodent infestation, coming particularly close to two rats, Ben and Socrates. Willard is played with great skill by Bruce Davison, communicating to the audience his despondency with family life as well as with his job. He has a love-hate relationship with his dotty, doting mother, played with the usual charm only Elsa Lanchester can exude. His relationship with his mother's friends is distant, and with his employer Martin, disastrous. Martin is played with relish by Ernest Borgnine, making the audience feel little sympathy for his fate. Naturally, Willard trains the rats to do "bad" things and this leads to a battle of wills between Willard and the main rat Ben(the lead character in the film's sequel BEN). Overall, the film is rather slowly paced, but well-acted and rewarding in the end.

1970's "Willard" looks and feels like a TV movie under the direction of Daniel Mann, based on Stephen Gilbert's 1968 novel "Ratman's Notebooks," emphasizing rats in a promotional campaign that earned an astonishing $12 million at the box office (my local theater paired it with another Cinerama release, "The House That Dripped Blood"). Those coming in expecting a horde of vermin would likely be surprised to find it a genuinely tragic human drama that never quite veers into horror territory, thanks to yeoman work from Bruce Davison in his sympathetic portrayal of Willard Stiles, who lost the family business to employer Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine) upon the death of his father, Elsa Lanchester typecast as Willard's dotty mother Henrietta. The film opens with Henrietta's overly protective friends celebrating Willard's 27th birthday, forcing the withdrawn youth to retreat to the relative safety of the backyard, where his cake attracts a small rat family. Willard's only escape from the abusive bullying of boss Martin is the tenderness of new girl Joan (Sondra Locke), and his obsessive training of the rats in his basement, cutting an opening in the screen to allow easy access. After his mother's unexpected death, Willard engages his tiny companions in a little espionage, spoiling an important get together at Martin's home, then stealing enough money to pay off his mortgage by frightening a wealthy patron out into the street. This was one of Borgnine's most vivid characterizations, a loathsome cad you just love to hate (the sign on his desk reads, "do unto others before they do unto you"), and his eventual comeuppance proves a sure audience pleaser, although the sight of his corpse lying on the ground is enough for Willard to turn his back on the rats and do away with them, only to learn too late that he's clearly outnumbered. We surmise early on that Mr. Stiles already has a screw loose, reminding us how it feels to be treated like a doormat by your worst employer, the ability to fight back an eternal impulse that only a select few might take advantage of. The rats look too cuddly to be scary (think of hamsters with long tails!), but with such repugnant humans populating Willard's universe it's no wonder that he becomes more attached to white rat Socrates and black rat Ben, the latter surviving for the inevitable sequel and Michael Jackson theme song.