Blu-Ray Review: Rats: Night Of Terror/Hell Of The Living Dead

By Brad Henderson

Rat movies seem to sprout up every once in a while over the years. I’m pretty sure none of them have been big successes but they are always fun in a cheesy way. Seriously, rats are the things that are killing people? Just fucking run away! Unless you are dealing with humungous rats, I’m sure this wouldn’t really pose a problem.

Rats: Night Of Terror is set after the bombs went off. Most of what we had before has been completely destroyed and we are living in some kind of Mad Max world where people scrounge for supplies. We are set up with a group of survivors who take a dip into town and come across this “advanced” makeshift shelter with food and a clean water supply. These guys waltz in there and they find a huge stockpile of food. What they do next is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in the many years I’ve watched movies: they are so happy they actually start wasting the food. I’m not kidding; they just start throwing the food up in the air and going nuts. One guy finds bags of sugar and goes fucking ballistic tearing them open and pouring the sugar in his mouth and eyes. Nuts. Another dude finds flour and throws it in his own face and dumps the rest on one of his friends. Now, at this point I couldn’t care less if any of these assholes survived because they are freaking stupid.

Since they are in this shelter and want to stay there, they won’t leave even after they learn the place is infested with rats. Their friends are dying, rats are killing people and ruining everything, and they just won’t leave! They could go outside and leave everything behind or even leave with the food they’ve found! These guys are so hell-bent on staying at this contaminated facility they deserve anything that comes their way.

Did I like this movie? Hell. Freaking. Yes.

Now that I have my bitching out of the way, films displaying this caliber of stupidity are the reason I love them. You can literally sit back and enjoy every moment because they are so absurd and insane. Both the events that unfold and the dialogue that is exchanged seem not to be of this earth, but are fantastic.

THE ENDING IS PHENOMENAL!

Bruno Mattei is known for his crazy flicks and has brought us this movie in addition to Strike Commando 2, Born To Fight, and Cruel Jaws. He is also the guy responsible for taking over Zombi 3 after Fulci had his stroke. Most importantly, Mattei directed a kickass zombie flick called Hell of the Living Dead as well.

Bruno Mattei went by Vincent Dawn for most of his films in the ’80s including these two. When I was younger Hell of the Living Dead was something I searched for endlessly. After I’d watched Zombie and Dawn of the Dead, I tried to find every single zombie film there was. This was also in the mid-’90s when a lot of these films were scarce (and still are). Luckily, there are companies like Blue Underground releasing some of the titles we grew up with. They are also cool enough to put both Rats: Night Of Terror and Hell of the Living Dead into a double feature on Blu-Ray.

Hell of the Living Dead is a mix of Dawn of the Dead and Zombie blended together with stock footage of a documentary of a real tribe. Hell, it even has a huge part of the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack playing throughout the beginning of the film. The stock footage that is mixed with the film feels completely out of place but I imagine it saved them a ton of money. Also, I’m not sure how many people caught on to this during its initial release, but on the Blu-Ray you can tell the difference and it is quite humorous.

Hell of the Living Dead is about a group of soldiers who are sent to investigate a chemical leak at a lab, and then team up with a group of reporters to take on a zombie onslaught to find out what is going on. It’s pretty straightforward but the characters are excellent and the reason why I revisit it again and again.

Both of these flicks have been released on DVD in the past but this is their first time on Blu-Ray. The transfer on Rats: Night Of Terror is OK at most. I’m not sure what film elements they had to work with for this one but it looks very similar to the DVD. Hell of the Living Dead looks freaking fantastic, though, and is a must for any fan of this film. I was surprised how good it actually looks. The one issue I had was the sound. I was hoping for 5.1 but what we get sounds more like 1.0. Don’t get me wrong; it sounds fine but I was hoping for more.

There are some really cool interviews on this disc that are worth picking up. Even through they’re taken from the original DVD releases, they’re a must for newbies. The price of this disc is great and so if you wanted to double-dip (I did) it is a good time to do so.

Rats: Night Of Terror and Hell of the Living Dead were released on Blu-Ray by Blue Underground on August 26.