Truly Dreadful Film

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Do not watch this garbage. It has no redeeming features. Not a single one. Bad acting, crap dialogue, rubbish dubbing, no atmosphere, terrible music, dire 'special' effects, painful story, dreadful direction etc. Even being drunk wouldn't save this one. Even brain trauma wouldn't save this. Ugh.

This like many Italian post nuclear films of the 1980's is much the same. The characters were bland, but a lot more sympathetic than those in the Final Executioner. They were supposed to be a warrior group, but acted more like wusses - my four pet kitties would take on the rats with more bravery. One, of the character's performance was so hammy, I thought "Are you totally serious?"Diana "I Want To Die!, as if she was giving an overly theatrical performance, rather than acting with a bit of commonsense. Lady, seriously, come on! The male characters really weren't much braver in terms of their fighting ability. Having said that, I liked Kurt, Taurus and Chocolate

Well, preparing to actually watch this movie (I'm not implying you should) you need to cope with the fact that rockers can survive a nuclear war, but can easily be killed by a dozen of mice (in the movie they're called billions of rats). The rockers are looking for a laboratory, where a cure for their nuclear war based sickness is to be found. Only problem; the "laboratory" (in fact it's a quite common apartment)is inhabited by pets, deadly pets. In the next 80 minutes, the rats kill one after another just by crawling over the rockers flawless bodies or by playing cruel tricks on them, just like MacCauley Culkin in Home alone. Also, in the "end" of the "movie" there's a quite "surprising" "turn". You won't believe your eyes because it's so shocking and horrifying, the human eye isn't capable to watch.

A very similar film in tone to Mattei's previous film HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD, RATS also has its fair share of stock footage (nice monument valley flyover in the opening), though the music is actually original.What could have been an interesting concept (much like the later PLANET OF THE APES movies or the game KKND where nuke mutants battle advanced underground dwellers) is totally ruined by the idiotic decision to focus this movie on an assault by killer rats. The whole crux of the film completely relies on the rats to be scary enough to keep up the suspense, but they fail right off the bat. There's nothing scary about them - just the fear of stepping in or accidentally eating their feces.What kills this film even more is Mattei's hands-off directing approach. You can tell the actors were not given any instruction and to just improvise in the many lengthy wide-angle shots of everyone. There's minimal close-ups to heighten drama, and frequent overacting. It's all quite amateurish besides the lighting and music (which is good besides the snooze-inducing main overture). What little gore there is is so badly done, it's not even laughable.Mattei did MUCH better with his far more entertaining (and funnier) action films in the late 80's. His "best" work in horror/sleaze would be the two women-in-prison films he made around the same time as this film. RATS is just boring. A huge bummer. I don't know why Mattei himself considered this his best film... I've seen more of his work than most people (I adore ROBOWAR and STRIKE COMMANDO) but I absolutely loathe this sleep-inducing film.