Altered Species

Well then. I just watched an crap-load of movies--all with varying degrees of quality. I wasn't too sure about which one I wanted to review first. Then it hit me like a sack-a-rats: Rodentz. Warn people about Rodentz. This monstrosity stars nobody and is painfully dull to sit through. And it's about mutant rats killing people. Yeah... real freaking' original. "Food of the Gods," or "Willard" anyone? Those were better than this, and that doesn't say much...

**POSSIBLE SPOILER**Okay here's the story: Inna laboratory the scientist and his plucky assistant are experimenting on rats and their laboratory is in a crappy neighborhood and crappy building and the plucky assistant's moronic friends show up drunk and everyone becomes food for the crazed rats and just about everybody dies and, oh yeah, there's one giant rat that looks crappy, but it gets killed, the end. There, all in once sentence! Spoiler, you say? Ppfff!! I beg to differ! The second we all realize that there's a giant rat, we all know it's gonna die eventually!!**END SPOILER**

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--Well, I watched it for free, but for everyone else... hmmm, no. There's nothing good here.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--Um... well. the gore was decent. --Very average cinematography.

--CG rats not as bad as they could've been in some shots...

The Bad:

--...and in other shots, the CG rats were pathetically cheap-looking. Look, if your film has a low budget, maybe you shouldn't rely on CG. Lesson to take to heart.

--The acting is extremely poor.

--The characters are beyond uninteresting--we have a mish-mash of clichés and none of them are even done that well.

--Booooooooooooring.

--Been done before--plenty of times.

--Stupid story, just stupid.

--Giant rat looks like fat man in poorly conceived bear costume--that was kind of funny--but not funny enough to give this film any worth.

--Retarded, unrealistic, and boring dialog.

--All the college student rat chow people are drinking Tequila from huge plastic milk jugs--and yet they don't appear to be drunk for anything longer than a few seconds. Way to stick with continuity, guys.

The Ugly:

--This film is bad. Simply terrible. Worse than you might imagine. It's not even laughably bad like, for instance, "Scarecrow" (2002) or "House of the Dead." Now those movies are crap you can enjoy. Even if they do make you stupider.

Memorable Scene:

--The lame action-movie ending, complete with uninjured heroes and explosion. Because it didn't feel at all like the rest of this monstrosity--but still sucked.

Acting: 2/10 Story: 1/10 Atmosphere: 2/10 Cinematography: 4/10 Character Development: 0/10 Special Effects/Make-up: 4/10 Nudity/Sexuality: 1/10 (I was tending to my son occasionally during the film, so I may have missed it, but was supposedly in there) Violence/Gore: 4/10 Dialogue: 2/10 Music: 1/10 (average for the time) Writing: 1/10 Direction: 2/10

Cheesiness: 7/10 Crappiness: 9/10

Overall: 1/10

Watch it only if you love rat and vermin-based horror films. Wait... Check that. Don't watch it. It's crap.

(www.ResidentHazard.com)

What a terrible film.

It starts well, with the title sequence, but that's about as good as it gets.

The movie is something about rats turning into monsters and going on a killing spree. The acting isn't so much poor, but the script is pointless and the film isn't even scary despite the atmospheric music.

It really is amazing that some group cobbled together this bag of rubbish and thought it would make a good film.

It isn't a good film. It's trash, and I urge you not to waste a minute of your life on it! One out of ten.

This film is easily one of the worst ones I have ever seen. And I don't mean that in a good way. We wanted to see a crappy horror/thriller, so we picked the one that seemed to be the lousiest in the store. For once, the film was everything we'd expected. And more! (or should I say less?)

The actors look like they are reading their lines from posters behind the camera. The so-called special effects are created by putting red see-through plastic in front of the camera to give the impression that we are seeing through the eyes of the killer rats. And the script? Don't even get me started on the script... And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it turns out that the first part of the film was Oscar-material compared to the ending.

Take it from me, this film is hilarious if you're into crappy horror-films, but if you want a GOOD film, keep on looking. This is not for you.

Altered Species (2001)

* (out of 4)

A professor is trying to cure cancer and of course doing experiments on rats who eventually escape and go on a killing spree. This is yet another film that deals with an animal going crazy and killing people but this one here is pretty bad from start to finish. The acting, directing and screenplay are all beyond horrid but thankfully the film gets so bad that you can't help but laugh. The director tries throwing all sorts of gore at the viewer but the killings are so bad that you can't help but laugh. We also get some nudity but not enough to keep the film moving. Go rent The Killer Shrews instead.

Despite the unorthodox script, storyline, and acting, the only real actor in the movie is Gary, played by Richard Peterson. He displays the only humor that is pretty funny. I honestly believe that if the actors were given a better script, the acting would have been much, much more believable. Allen Lee Haff wasn't bad either. He and Richard have the potential to do much deeper roles. I wouldn't be surprised if Richard becomes a big Hollywood star in the near future. I think Allen could do some Vince Vaughn- type of roles. Richard has a James Dean like aura about him when he walks across the screen. I really think that in lieu of the Director's choice of screenplays, Richard Peterson has huge big screen potential. I know that he will be in bigger roles sometime soon.