The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! (1972)

That's quite the title. And I think that works against the film. When you hear, "The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!" you probably expect an even more over-the-top sequel to Rats: Night of Terror. Actually, what you get is a character-based Gothic drama, kind of like a play. In fact, I couldn't be surprised if the screenplay had been a play at some point.

Rats Are Coming is the story of a wealthy, but very isolated family, whose patriarch is a biochemist of some sort. The children are of all different ages (45, 30, 25, 21) and are clearly harboring some secrets. We're given an audience surrogate in the film, thankfully. The youngest daughter, who was sent away to learn biochemistry, has returned, but with a husband. She wasn't supposed to marry; it's dangerous, her father says, and she must divorce. So we're left to watch as the mounting tensions in the household gradually reveal more and more about the family secrets and the twisted personalities of its members until the shocking finale. Not exactly a salacious, over-the-top eurotrash picture, is it?

Milligan was, wikipedia tells me, indeed a playwright. This shows in the quality of his writing. The dialogue is very good. It is clear he knows how to write, has a strong sense of the vernacular, idle talk, and is quite literate. There's a Dickensian quality to the grotesque characters and the story itself strikes me as influenced by The Fall of the House of Usher as well as the whole history of Gothic literature. The themes it addresses fuse the Gothic obsession with secrets and transgression with modern concerns for transhumanism and scientific transgression.

Sadly, I can't speak about the film's violence, because the beat-up old VHS I watched seems to have the violence cut out in a very clumsy way. I did manage to spot a hand severed by a meat cleaver, but an awkward cut limited my enjoyment. From what I can tell, there are two murders, one of which involves rats, and both of which might be grizzly.

So there you have it, my first Andy Milligan film. I had expected it to be unusual, something I'd have to review in an unusual way. Not so; it's a pretty well-made dark, Gothic melodrama. Where R.D. Steckler's films stand out as odd, that's not the case with this one. Milligan does great work. Even Milligan's actors are excellent, with the one exception of the fellow playing the husband, who is a remarkably bad actor.

And does he ever work. The credits tell me Milligan wrote, directed, shot, edited, played a part (a lonely old gunsmith), and designed the costumes himself. And it's all a success.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2726/4083511155_b1d4f6e0a2.jpg - Some nice shooting and costume on display. This chick has a Californian face the whole film: tanning bed complexion with frosty lips. Pretty though.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2760/4084271152_041d943356.jpg - Here's Andy, charming our California-faced lass.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3535/4083511073_1accac4231.jpg - It's a pretty grotesque film.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2626/4083511031_b755c01162.jpg - With some creative camera angles.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2522/4084270970_2cd887139f.jpg - And more costumes on display.

Rats is pretty much Gormenghast meets The Fall of the House of Usher. So if you like generally dialogue- and character-driven period horror, you should be pleased and entertained by this fascinating, thought-provoking film.