Just so...so bad

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This movie was so good for the first 45 minutes, I almost wept when the second half went all to hell.Few movies capture the seedy underbelly of New York City in as raw a way. Parts of this movie look almost like they were filmed guerrilla- style. Indeed, in that respect, "Mulberry Street" hearkens back to the glorious '80s films of Frank Hennenlotter.Alas, this is no "Basket Case" or "Brain Damage." Because although director Jim Mickle imbues the film with the same gritty, neon-lit, back-alley feel characteristic of Hennenlotter, his failure is that while Hennenlotter expertly married the surrealism of real-life Manhattan with his bizarre stories and creations, this film, while showing that kind of promise early on, unfortunately has so little confidence in itself it devolves quickly and quite unfortunately into B-movie idiocy.The conceit is wonderful -- a new rat-borne disease is turning New Yorkers into flesh-eating zombies.Wouldn't a "28 Days Later" set in NYC and directed by Frank Hennenlotter be awesome? Keep hoping. Because although it looks like it's going that way for the first half, then the rat people show up.Yes, this rat-borne disease not only makes people zombies, it freakin' turns them into rat people.Ridiculous, pointy-eared, pointy-toothed rat people who squeak like rats and scurry about the floor on all fours.I wanted to weep, seriously weep, halfway through this movie, because when the first rat person showed up after 45 minutes of Hennenlotteresque gritty New York cinematography, interesting camera-work and real, untrained New Yorkers as actors, it felt like I'd found a real super-cool, smart, pretty and sassy girlfriend, and just learned too late she had the clap.Man this one looked like it was gonna be a real good one, too. What a disappointment.

Let's get the worst out of the way. Unfortunately it is the basic premise of the story. Infected rats bite humans, humans get infected and bite other humans. If they left it at that then it would have been a good virus infection movie - even a semi-zombie movie. But the people turn into rat like creatures. That's just bad. Also some of the camera work and lighting isn't good. But we've seen that in movies with a far greater budget.What I liked about it were things not associated with the actual story line. I liked the feel of New York especially at the start. Being filmed right on the street and clearly in people's apartments made it feel very real. Not an artificial set.Most of the actors are mainly not especially good but still far better than in many other movies. The fact that some were friends makes it more impressive. In particular I liked the main male lead and the woman who played his daughter although she had a very small part. Coco the gay character was good too.I liked the feel of the interactions between the characters. The casual nature of their conversation, often dull everyday conversation and the care they showed to each other. Like when the landlord helps the man with the oxygen back into bed or when the woman talks to her boss when she first shows up for work. I can see why some find that boring especially in a horror movie. However I found it set up friendships for me.The characters may not have been well developed but some were certainly odd. The main female character is an injured war vet with a scared face. That doesn't go anywhere, it's not a subplot, it's just the way it is. The ending with her father and Coco left us wondering what their relationship was. Was the daughter tranquilized or injected with rat poison as someone said? (Most rat poisons are slow so maybe not a good thing to use.) Why did the mother not attack the son?All of that might be good in some drama but this was a horror movie. If I could get by the "rat people" concept then there were some tense scenes. Nothing you've not seen before but still effective.In the end a movie has to be entertaining to you regardless who is in it or what its budget was. Yet I didn't find that the low, low budget of this film didn't hurt it all that much. In fact I can't help but be impressed with what they did with very little money.

Diseased rats infected with some type of virus are attacking people in New York City causing the residents to transform into ravenous rat-like zombies. In one particular apartment complex on Mulberry Street the residents take up a defensive posture hoping to survive long enough for help to arrive. "Clutch" (Nick Damici) is a former boxer who essentially tries to lead in this endeavor. His daughter, "Casey" (Kim Blair) is a wounded combat veteran of Iraq who has just gotten out of the hospital and is trying to make her way to him through the streets of New York. "Kay" (Bo Corre) is a waitress at a nearby bar who lives up the stairs and is attracted to Clutch. Likewise, there were other characters with similar life stories which the director (Jim Mickle) did a pretty good job of setting up as well. So much so that I was a little disappointed with the ending. But since I don't want to spoil the film by saying which characters live and which ones do not, I won't go any further. What I will say though is that this movie has some very fast action which made it a bit difficult to fully absorb at some points. Additionally, zombie purists may not consider this film to be a "zombie" movie in that it follows more along the lines of "28 Days Later" than the standard zombie formula. But even so, I thought this was a pretty good movie all the same and I recommend it for those who enjoy a film of this type.

I'd been curious about this because when I was small I read TO THINK THAT I SAW IT ON MULBERRY STREET, and so it had my attention from the get-go based on that.The template is, of course, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and, before that THE BIRDS. A group of people is trapped together while under attack from external forces.The thing is, this is a very interesting group of people played by excellent but unknown actors. This is actually a benefit: if big stars were cast, you'd have a pretty good idea what the life expectancy of various characters was.The main character is Clutch, a former boxer. He lives on Mulberry Street in New York City- and this is actually New York City, not Toronto- in a neighborhood that is undergoing massive change. Real estate developers are chasing off the locals (i.e. poor people and/or minorities) to put up luxury buildings. But what they can't get rid of is the rats. In the heat of summer they are thriving, and they become bolder and begin attacking people. When people are bitten they become monsters and attack other people, thus spreading the disease more and more quickly.Clutch's daughter, Casey, is coming home bearing the scars of war in the Persian Gulf. She gets to Manhattan, but when the subway trains stop running due to the epidemic she has to make her way to Lower Manhattan to find her father and his friends.I can't believe this movie was made on such a small budget. Wow. If there were any justice the people who worked on this movie- the actors didn't get paid, most were friends and relatives of the director and writer- would all be millionaires.