Monday, October 7, 2024

"A Rodent Can Smell a Man from Ten Kilometers Away" - Rat Man (1988)

Today we shall return to Mexico via Italy and discuss 1988's Rat Man, directed by Giuliano Carnimeo, co-written by horror specialist Dardano Sacchetti, and co-starring one of Italian horror's favorite couples, David Warbeck and Janet Agren. Rat Man is one of the finest late-80s combination of slasher film and creature feature.

Some of your universe's critics disagree, incorrectly of course. For example, reviewer durtalique writes, "Worth watching if you don't appreciate your time, or are drunk enough to laugh at poor filmmaking." Reviewer Stevieboy666 writes, "Expect awful dubbing, ridiculous scenarios, bad acting and a really stupid plot." And reviewer paul_haakonsen writes, "While I managed to sit through the movie in its entire bland 88 minute runtime, I can't claim to be particularly impressed or entertained."

It goes without saying (but saying it I must) that these critics are completely wrong. Read on for the correct opinion about Giuliano Carnimeo's Rat Man...

The film opens with shots of lab animals in cages while a scientist explains in voiceover, “I hereby confirm that I will present to the next International Genetics Congress the new hybrid I have developed by introducing the sperm of a rat into the ovum of a monkey.” At this point, the viewer might believe he or she is watching a fascinating documentary about a modern genetics conference in which geneticists show off various hybrid creatures, but the scientist continues, “This hybrid has in its teeth and under its nails a very potent poison, one that produces a kind of instantaneous leptospirosis. A bite or scratch will kill a human being in just a few seconds.” At this point, it is clear the viewer is watching a horror movie, and a particularly terrifying one at that, based solely on the man’s voiceover.

The next shots introduce the hybrid rat-monkey, played by the late 2’ 4” actor Nelson de la Rosa Martinez, who would later become famous for his role in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996). Shockingly, the hybrid is called “Mousey” and is kept in a cage in a filthy room, where he is tormented both by the scientist, Dr. Olman, and his servant. Dr. Olman tells his servant to clean the room by burning all the rat test subjects while the doctor will take Mousey to the conferences.

After a shot of Mousey’s empty cage, the film cuts to a beach, where, as in all Italian films, the narrative begins with a man shooting photographs of a woman in a bikini while muttering things like “Beautiful, beautiful” and “Just like that.”


As the photo shoot progresses, a young man secretly watching from the jungle is suddenly killed by Mousey, who appears behind him.

When the photographer, Mark, and one of the models goes to a beachside bar for a drink, the other model sees a bizarre bloody skull image in the rocks and screams.


Later, Mark develops the photos from the shoot and, in a gialloesque development, he uses a magnifying glass to investigate a small detail of one photo.

Meanwhile, the model Monique takes a taxi through the city streets but a tire has a blowout. “I don’t have a spare, miss,” says the driver. “You’ll have to walk.”

“But I’ll be late. It’s just a flat. Can’t you fix it?”

“It’s the third one today,” the driver replies. “I don’t have any more spares.” (One wonders how frequently the poor driver loses three tires in a day; it is commendable he keeps two spare tires on him, but tonight his luck has run out.)

“Well, which way do I go?”

“There’s a bus stop about 100 meters down the road.”

“A hundred meters? Is it safe to walk?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” the driver replies, so Monique walks away.

Unfortunately for Monique, halfway down the street she witnesses a bloody body behind a window being dragged away. Something screeches and she runs, then hides in an apparently abandoned house. A man stalks her, scraping his knife blade against the walls like Freddy Krueger with only one digit.

Monique finds a good hiding place, but in another gialloesque touch she brushes her hand against her own dress and various pearls detach themselves from the dress, loudly plunking onto the floor. 

The murderer approaches, but before he can kill her, she moves some fabric near her feet to reveal, horribly, the face of the terrifying Mousey!


Mousey kills her with his poisonous claws. The would-be knife murderer runs away.

The film cuts to an airplane landing. At the airport, David Warbeck and Janet Agren have a “meet cute” as they both attempt to hail the same taxi (this one has four working tires). Ms. Agren is the sister of one of the photo shoot models, the presumed murder victim, and Ms. Agren needs to identify her in the local morgue. However, shockingly, Ms. Agren says the body is not her sister’s!

The inspector assigned to the case investigates further, asking a hotel desk clerk where the photographer and models went. The clerk says they went into the jungle, looking, sensibly, for more exotic shooting locales.

“So she’s still alive,” Mr. Warbeck concludes with no evidence. “You’re bound to get a promotion on this one, Inspector.”

“For your information, we have already caught the murderer.”

“Oh, really?” Mr. Warbeck asks suspiciously.

“Yes, really,” the inspector replies. “He’s a nutcase. A street bum. So Mr. Williams, you just go on writing your TV mysteries and leave the investigating to us professionals. Do you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Inspector.”

Later, by a hotel pool, Mr. Warbeck and Ms. Agren decide to investigate the mystery on their own — but instead of trying to find Ms. Agren’s sister in the jungle, they go to the murder scene so Mr. Warbeck can take notes for a teleplay he wants to work on. They simply enter the crime scene and check the texture of the murder victim’s blood, as no police officers are anywhere nearby.

Mr. Warbeck, seeing the wardrobe where the model died, concludes, “Nobody killed her.”

“What?” Ms. Agren protests. “But you saw her body. That was murder.”

“Died of a heart attack,” Mr. Warbeck says, concluding that she died of fright. He points to some scratches on the inside of the wardrobe. Of course, there is not other explanation — Monique must have died of fright due to something capable of scratching a wooden wardrobe.

As Mr. Warbeck explains what happened (actually, he is recording the plot of his TV mystery using a tape recorder), the two suddenly hear a noise in the abandoned house. He looks inside the wardrobe, and both are frightened when a black cat suddenly jumps out!

They then hear another sound and quickly hide. They watch as a man enters the room, looks for something, then runs out of the house. Mr. Warbeck and Ms. Agren follow him outside, but he gets in a car and drives away, flummoxing them.

Oddly, they speak to the inspector and he interrupts them, telling them there is  another murder victim, a young woman who might be Ms. Agren’s sister. Again, however, the body proves to be somebody else.


Eventually, Ms. Agren decides she should find her sister Marilyn. Mr. Warbeck says he will help her, and it will provide useful story fodder for his work.

In the jungle (clearly a well used tourist location based on the many steps and lights), the photographer continues photographing his surviving model. Shockingly, they discover a bleeding body in the jungle. They drive to a nice house in the trees, which they find apparently abandoned. While the photographer takes shots of a bloody mess in one room, we see that Mousey (could any name strike more terror in the hearts of film audiences than Mousey? Certainly not!) is stalking the photographer and his assistant while the model waits in their car. 

Eventually, after a suspenseful sequence showing the photographer walking through the house, Mousey appears — out of a toilet, no less!


Unfortunately for the assistant, Mousey kills her, scratching her with his venomous (also poisonous, no doubt) claws.

Somewhat confusingly, the film cuts to the scientist’s office, where the photographer has a drink with the scientist and explains he found his assistant’s body in the abandoned house. (There is no explanation of how the photographer found the scientist.) The photographer asks, “Where’s Marilyn?”

“Oh, she’s taking a shower,” the scientist says about the model. “She’s beautiful. Beautiful. It seems like a thousand years since I’ve seen such beauty.”

Not so confusingly, the film cuts to Marilyn taking a shower. 

Shockingly, Mousey watches the model taking her shower from outside the scientist’s house. 

Although Marilyn sees Mousey’s shadow while everyone sits in the kitchen, she and the photographer agree to stay overnight in the scientist’s house because their car has too many bad memories.

Thus begins a night of terror as Mousey stalks Marilyn in her bedroom.


Marilyn runs to the photographer’s room, only to find that he has been scratched to death!


When she screams, the scientist runs to the bedroom with his assistant. “Oh, my god,” the scientist says, “he’s done it again.”

Grotesquely, Mousey blinds the assistant with his claws, then starts to eat the man.


Elsewhere in the house, the scientist explains the plot to Marilyn. “The hybrid you saw was my greatest achievement who comes from a cross of two species. The first time I saw it, I was convinced it was a miracle. I thought I’d win the Nobel Prize.” (Nobel Prizes are famously given for the best miracle of the year, I assume.) “It took me twenty years of experiments, but I created that hybrid. Then it escaped. The village people were very frightened. Three girls had disappeared, and people began talking about a curse. Some said that God wanted to punish them for their sins. That he had sent a terrible monster — half man, half rat. I realized, obviously, that it was my hybrid. Then everyone ran away.” He wanted to capture Mousey alive to get fame and fortune.

He describes, frighteningly, how powerful and venomous his hybrid is. “Did you know a rodent can smell a man from ten kilometers away?”

Eventually, Mr. Warbeck and Ms. Agren stumble upon the abandoned town where the scientist and Mousey live. However, they decide to drive away almost immediately.

In a parallel fashion, the scientist decides to drive Marilyn out of the town, but he stops and returns to his house to retrieve his “research papers.” A foolish move, it turns out, as Mousey attacks him. (There is no indication why the hybrid attacks his “father” now, as he had many opportunities earlier — one of Mousey’s most frightening characteristics is his unpredictability.)


Because the scientist took the car keys, Marilyn (apparently unwilling to walk out of the abandoned town) is forced to return to the house to find them. She does so without incident, but when she returns to the car she is attacked by Mousey, so she must run back into the house to barricade herself inside the room with the scientist’s dead body. There, she finds a gun and tries to use a telephone to call for help, but the line is dead. She is forced to shoot at Mousey as he invades her hiding space.

After several minutes of suspense, in which Mousey scratches through a wall (the sight and sound of his fingernails scratching at the wall are truly disturbing), Marilyn casually takes a bottle of soda from a refrigerator and takes a long drink. Then she falls peacefully asleep.

Meanwhile, Mr. Warbeck and Ms. Agren, who are driving away from the jungle, decide, perhaps confusingly, to drive back to the scientist’s house to find a phone to call Marilyn. 

The film cuts from night to morning. Marilyn is still alive in the scientist’s house. She decides to open the refrigerator again, but this time Mousey is waiting inside, having scratched his way through the back of the fridge. 


He jumps on Marilyn just as Mr. Warbeck and Ms. Agren arrive by car. Unfortunately, they arrive too late, as they find Marilyn’s bloody body in the house.

The film cuts to the local police station, where the inspector tells them, “Listen, my friend, maniacs are as unpredictable here as they are in New York. But sooner or later they all get caught. Just like in New York.”

“Yeah, in the meantime, more people get killed,” Mr. Warbeck says angrily.

Shockingly, Mousey has stowed away in Marilyn’s handbag, which is in the police station! He kills a police clerk, then hides again in the bag, which Ms. Agren collects before heading directly to the airport. She checks the bag and we see it moving along the conveyor belt as we hear Mousey’s amused squealing.

Then, in a classic final shot, the film shows an airplane taking off as we hear terrified passengers screaming, helpless as Mousey attacks them. The film freezes on the plane in the sky.

The End



Rat Man is the second-to-last film directed by Giuliano Carnimeo (before the intriguingly titled Computron 22, also released in 1988), and the director's experience shows in Rat Man, which is full of tension and wide-angle shots of people terrified of the tragic monster Mousey. Mr. Carnimeo had been directing films since 1959, and his filmography includes such fascinating titles as the aforementioned Computron 22, Panic Button, They Call Him Cemetery, Exterminators of the Year 3000, My Wife Goes Back to School, and of course Convoy Buddies. No doubt many of these films are hidden treasures on the level of Rat Man.

Rat Man itself is structured like one of the various slasher/giallo hybrid films of the late 1980s, with the mysterious Mousey killing an assortment of people until the surprise climax when he is let loose on an airplane (the carnage inside is never shown, unfortunately). Intentionally, the stalking and murder scenes are quite grungy and somewhat ugly, in contrast to the stylish and colorful gialli of Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava. The murders are also less stylized than in a giallo or most slashers, as Mousey appears to want only two things: to scratch people and walls, and to eat people (but not walls). The tone is down-to-earth and almost unpleasant (again, intentionally), and even the music is insistent and repetitive. These qualities make Rat Man stand out among similar films like Demons 2 (also co-written by Dardano Sacchetti). And as always it is disappointing that a sequel was never filmed -- a movie called Rat Man 2: The Return of Mousey that begins inside the doomed airplane on the way to New York would no doubt be another classic, and it would almost write itself (always the mark of a great film). Tragically, it was not to be, even though director Giuliano Carnimeo would not die until 2016. Oh well. We'll always have Rat Man.