As cheesy, cruddy Italian post-apocalypse cinema goes, "Rats: Night of Terror" is constantly amusing and certainly NOT ever boring. It has enough uproarious moments to make it quite an acceptable diversion, and some brilliant lines (ex. "I'm gonna warm their whiskers!").

The story (credited to director Bruno Mattei) deals with a roving gang that comes upon an abandoned complex where they get inundated with rats that are more voracious, aggressive, and intelligent than normal. In order to ensure their own survival, they determine to make it an unsafe world for the rodent population.

Good fun all the way for its decently paced 97 minutes, it seems to suggest that the best way to survive a post-apocalypse future is to go underground. Luigi Ceccarelli's electronic score is a hoot to listen to, just like much of the dialogue. The dubbing and vocal performances, as is often the case for this sort of thing, are just hysterical, with the on screen performers gamely going with the flow of this material. It's extremely cool to note that leading actor Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, billed as Richard Raymond for English language prints, is the man behind the infamous "worm eye" zombie from Lucio Fulci's "Zombi 2". Besides Dell'Acqua, people will also recognize Geretta Geretta (billed as Janna Ryann) from Lamberto Bava's "Demoni". The funniest performance comes from Henry Luciani as Duke, what with his facial expressions.

Wonderful gags include a rat emerging from a victims' mouth. The overall mood and feel of "Rats: Night of Terror" is a great study in decay and despair, and pretty much everybody in this cast of characters is fair game for a hideous demise. And the movie rewards all viewers who stick it out to the end with a priceless final revelation they won't soon forget.

Don't listen to the naysayers...at least give this goofy bit of Euro escapism a chance. It may be of the endearingly bad kind of experience, but for this viewer it wasn't so bad it was good. It was so bad it was a RIOT.

Eight out of 10.

I first saw this in the late 80s on a rented vhs. Revisited it it recently on a dvd. This film is so bad, that its just laughable. It is absolutely terrible compared to most 80s films. Monotonously lengthy n very dull. A character named chocolate n she has one of the worst racist dialogue in this flick. More cheesy lines: They (rats) r stronger than us. We r only 4 left. Clever rats chewed the tyres. Man, was it so hard for the Clint Eastwood n Chuck Norris lookalikes to jus move on n walk outta the house. The kills scenes r way too dumb n boring, the film does boast of a lousy sex scene with frontal nudity of both the sexes.

Bruno Mattei. What a guy. Single-handedly responsible for most of the appalling trash to come out of the gutters of Italy's cinematic export, he here lovingly crafts a totally boring, ridiculous, and inept addition to the post-apocalypse genre which takes the usual band of roving bikers, badly-dressed females, and souped-up vehicles and plonks them right into a run-down industrial setting. Unfortunately for our 'heroes', they aren't alone, and soon start getting picked off one by one by some killer rats. The rest of the film consists of them running around the same three locations, setting fire to each other, whilst the special effects guys create some cheap but nasty gore effects for the horror crowd to delight in. Whilst not as incredibly bad (and thus entertaining) as his ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH, RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR should still be seen by Mattei buffs as a typical example of the director's insane output.

The film is as badly dubbed as any to come out of Italy and the script is even more stupid than usual. Imagine somebody setting a film in the years A.B. (After the Bomb) and then clapping themselves on the back for their cleverness. Plus we get more stupid character names – I swear there's a guy named Video, a black girl named Chocolate, and still somebody else called Lucifer. A typical scene in the movie involves a couple having sex in front of the rest of the group. They're asked to leave and split up after a fight. The guy gets into her sleeping bag, which is invaded by rats, and then she's eaten. The guy, drunk, falls into a pit, is smothered in rats and dies. Things like this happen throughout the drawn-out running time with little interest to hold the viewer.

I kept trying to spot some redeeming aspect of this film but I couldn't. The idea of rats as a menace is a pretty unnerving one, but as Mattei and friends didn't have the money for effects they ended up using real rats. Shining a torch on a rat in a bid to make it look threatening just doesn't work and these are an even poorer menace than the dressed-up dogs in THE RATS because when required to attack full-force they just run off in different directions. The various rat attacks seemingly involve pouring a load of unfortunate rats on top of the screaming victim, repeated ad infinitum. Being a rodent lover some scenes are distasteful but at least there's nothing as bad as the (real) rat burning in THE HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE. The gore effects are plentiful but cheap and shoddy, the highlight being when a rat bursts out of a guy's back like in DEMONS. However Sergio Stivaletti isn't to hand for the effects so instead they just inflate the guy's leather jacket which is pretty dumb – but funny.

The dubbing is very bad and there isn't any action to speak of. Everything happens in the dark at night so you can't really see what's happening very clearly, although perhaps this is a blessing. The acting is appalling and there are no likable characters to sympathise with at all. One thing I did like about the film is the simply ludicrous twist ending which has to be one of the most unintentionally funniest out there – unforgettable once you've seen it and definitely worth waiting for. RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR is another toothless menace from mother Italy, a harmless and disappointing exercise in thrills and fear made watchable by sheer incompetence all round. Bad movie buffs should have a field day. Bruno Mattei, take a bow.