RATS: NIGHTS OF TERROR (1984) (88 Films Blu-ray Review/Comparison)

RATS: NIGHTS OF TERROR (1984) 

Label: 88 Films

Region Code: B
Duration: 96 Minutes

Audio: English, Italian LPCM Stereo with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)

Director: Bruno Mattei
Cast: Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, Geretta Geretta, Massimo Vanni

In Bruno Mattei's Rats: Night of Terror (1984) Earth is a post-nuke wasteland, the year s 225 A.B. (you know, After the Bomb!), the world lays in ruins hundreds of years after the bombs have fallen, and we take-up with a motorbike gang of Mad Max styled bad asses rolling in the a burned out town. They find refuge is a strange building that looks to be a saloon up on top and a research facility down below, which is where good fotune seems to be smiling down upon them, discovering crates of stockpiled food rations. The food is a bizarre combination of what looks to be canned sour kraut, grains, sugar and flour, it's a pretty shit pantry selection but even this seems like quite a find in the A.B.-life. Filling themselves on their new spoils they settle in for the night, but find that the place is crawling with fierce four-legged vermin, besieged by a horde of red-eyed rats with a taste for human flesh.

Co-written and directed by Claudio Fragasso (Troll 2) and Bruno Mattei (Violence in a Women's Prison) this is a post-apocalyptic slice of Italian exploitation in the vein of Eliminators of the Year 3000 (1983), by way of a killer-rat movie Deadly Eyes (1982). The band of surface dwelling scavengers is lead by the cheesily rugged Kurt (Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, Zombie 3), but for me the real star is American born Euro-cult star Garetta Garetta (Demons) who is a serious bad ass black biker babe, named "Chocolate", 'natch. Along those lines there's a scene of someone dumping a bag of flour over Chocolate's head, and she starts doing a jig, while singing/saying "look, I'm just as white as all of you!", it's an odd bit of reverse-black face, but not all that strange for an Italian production from this era, all these Italian films were loaded with oddities, if it wasn't the all too-real animal carnage in the cannibal films (and this one too), it was atrocious dialogue, which this has as well,  and these insensitive racial characterizations. 

The rats we see onscreen are not the ravenous looking sewer rats they are implied to be, instead we get some docile looking white lab rats with bright pink eyes, that look to have been thrown into an oil can or something to make them look dark and scary, with occasional tufts of white fur showing through, but in a world where I can watch Deadly Eyes and be just fine with dachshunds in rat pelts I'm O.K. with what this film has to offer. Some of it is less forgivable though, like a brief scene of what is supposed to be a horde of rats on the move, but looks to be some sort of carousel wheel or treadmill with plastic toy rats glued onto it being turned around to give a poor man's illusion of said horde, it's probably the most laughable effect in the film, but trust me, it's not as laughable as most of the stilted Italian to English dubbed dialogue. 

For a Mattei film there's not a lot of bloodletting and gore, but the film is reasonably well shot, being a fairly entertaining genre mash-up with some much appreciated nudity and a loads of scenes of wet rats clearly being thrown and dumped onto the actors, which I am sure was not pleasant for actor nor rat. There is a small smattering of minor gore though, with the group discovering the gnawed-on remains of the scientists who once inhabited the facility, plus a cheap gag involving a rat emerging from the mouth of a corpse after having eaten it's way up from her naughty bits, presumably.

The film is cheap and silly for sure but I dig the apocalyptic punker aesthetic and deadly rats shtick, if you're a fan of post-nuke and/or killer rat movies this is a fun trashy b-movie, not a great film, but certainly an entertaining red-eyed rat flick. 

The film has a shocker of an end that involves the arrival of contamination suited survivors who emerge from the underground, revealing themselves to be rat-faced subterranean humanoid underground dwellers, which always brings a smile to my face, love it.

Audio/Video: Rats: Nights of Terror (1984) arrives on region B locked Blu-ray from 88 Films as part of their Italian Collection line-up, presented in 1080p HD and framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. 88 Films do not offer an lineage for their HD master but it looks good, the grain looks decent, blacks are good and the colors are well saturated, though there is what looks to be a little bit of scanner noise present throughout. I've included a few screenshots comparing it to the 2014 region-free Blu-ray from Blue Underground, the color grading and framing looks identical to my eyes, I am thinking this is the same HD master, but a tad brighter.  

Audio comes by way of both English and Italian LPCM 2.0 Stereo with optional English subtitles, both tracks are clean and free of distortion, they're in good shape, but I think the English audio is more robust, the electronic synth score from Luigi Ceccarelli has a nice life in the mix.

Onto the extras we get a few good ones, beginning with a new interview with Stuntmen and leads Massimo Vanni and Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, they discuss having known Mattei since childhood, he was a friend of their cousin, joining Mattei for a series of films he shot in the Philippines, working with Fulci on Demons 3, how the effects of a rats coming out of a victim's mouth was ac hived, and singing the praises of "b-movie" directors like Enzo Castellari, Lucio Fulci, Lamberto Bava and, of course, Bruno Mattei.

Composer Luigi Ceccarelli shows up for a 19-min interview, opening with his early love of music, and of composing music specifically, beginning his career in film scoring on a Claudio Fragasso super 8mm film, then going on to score Metamorphosis, Blue Angel Cafe, Women's Prison Massacre and over forty others, including co-scoring Nosferatu with Vangelis, saying he rarely passed up a film score opportunity, regardless of budget. He also speaks of visiting the set of Rats, which was not something he would usually do, and seeing scenes of the rats being let loose, describing Mattei as being very in control, while Fraggasso was more impulsive, describing their rapport together as playful.

88 Films go all-out for this release, the single-disc Blu-ray release comes housed in an oversized clear Blu-ray keepcase with a 2-sided sleeve of artwork, both artworks are basically the same with slight alterations, one side featuring the Italian title and the other the English title, with the English option featuring the numbered spine, while the Italian option does not. The limited edition includes an attractive slipcover with the same English title artwork, inside there's a 4-page booklet containing an interview with star Garetta Garetta by

Calum Waddell, in it she discusses her career, working with Argento and Lamberto Bava, the convention circuit, and a writing a script for a Demons homage, which would in effect be Demons 3! There's also a fold-out mini poster of the film with the Italian title!

Blu-ray Comparison: 

Top: Blue Underground Blu-ray (2014)

Bottom: 88 Films Blu-ray (2018) 

Special Features:  

- Limited Edition Gloss O-Card slipcase [First Print Run Only] 

- Limited Edition Interview with Geretta Geretta booklet by Dr Calum Waddell [First Print Run Only] 

- Limited Edition 150gsm Fold-out poster [First Print Run Only] 

- Uncompressed Original English Audio 

- Uncompressed Alternative Italian Audio 

- Newly translated English Subtitles fort he Italian Audio - NEW Interview with Stuntmen and leads Massimo Vanni and Ottaviano Dell'Acqua (25 min) HD 

- NEW Interview with composer Luigi Ceccarelli (19 min) 

- Theatrical Trailer  (2 min) 

- Reversible Sleeve with Italian Title 

Rats: Nights of Terror (1984) is a fun slice of post-nuke rat horror from the Italians, it's not too gory but all sorts of fun, and just a little bit mental, good stuff. 88 Films do good work bringing this one Blu-ray for the UK, and for you region-free lovers of exploitation.

More 88 Films Blu-ray Screenshots