aka Quella villa in fondo al parco
The late eighties were somewhat of a rough period for Italian filmmaking. Throughout the late sixties, and especially during the seventies, genre filmmaking was exceedingly prolific in Italy, with gialli and horror films making up a huge percentage of the country's cinematic output. The early eighties marked something of a departure, particularly in the realm of horror, with the majority of films being made to cash-in on the success of Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD.
After the boom of undead and man-eater flicks, Italian exploitation began to suffer immeasurably, with the few films that were being made suffering from minuscule budgets and tighter shooting schedules. Many of the directors who had demonstrated great flare and panache during the seventies had been reduced to knocking out cheap quickies to capitalise on the new found craze for slasher films. Italy's mainstream film industry had always been reactive to the trends set by the US or fellow European countries, and by the mid eighties the slasher reigned supreme, with all manner of masked or disfigured maniacs setting the box offices alight with the likes of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13TH series. For the Italians, the slasher was an easy genre to replicate, as it had always been a concept/gore-driven formula, rather than something that had had to rely of superstars to connect with its target audience, and it wasn't long before all the 70s stalwarts—such as Deodato, Umberto Lenzi and Lucio Fulci--were turning their hand to this type of movie...
Giuliano Carnimeo (or Anthony Ascot, to use his Anglicized pseudonym) was one such director; someone that had made some fairly respectable genre films in the 70s, including the stylish giallo CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS and hard-hitting prostitution drama SECRETS OF A CALL GIRL. By the mid 80s, Carnimeo was obviously languishing in the same "work to eat" predicament as his peers, thus signing on to direct RATMAN (Original Italian Title: Quella villa in fondo al parco), the story of a genetically-engineered mutant who escapes his captor/creator and embarks upon a bloody rampage.
Having introduced the sperm of a rat to the ovary of a monkey, a Nobel Prize-seeking scientist unwittingly unleashes a murderous rat/simian hybrid onto an unsuspecting Dominican Republic. Ratman--or "Mousy" as he is known to his creator—soon begins to dispatch scantily-clad vixens and it's not long before David Warbeck's TV mystery writer and Janet Agren (here playing the daughter of a US senator) are crossing paths with our furry merchant of death.
Let's get something straight: RATMAN is a truly appalling film and is inept on every level conceivable. The direction is flat; the writing abysmal—after seeing the clawed remains of one of RATMAN's victims, two characters, in two completely different parts of the film exclaim: "It must have been some kind of animal!"—the entire cast, including the usually dependable Warbeck, sleep walk through the entire film and the film is hideously over lit in a fashion typical of Italian horror films of the period. That said, RATMAN is a joy in a "it's so bad it's actually enjoyable" kind of way, with plenty of fun to be had from the banal dialogue, gruesome murders and Eva Grimaldi's completely gratuitous full-frontal shower scene. Nelson de la Rosa, who plays the titular character, also deserves special mention; at just over two feet tall--the actor was inducted into the Guinness Book of Records for being the smallest man on Earth—has a presence that adds a great deal to the film's absurdist tone.
Shameless' disc is presented in anamorphic 1.78:1. There's a disclaimer at the film's start apologising for the quality of transfer but the image is workable, if soft, but ultimately adds to the flick's low budget feel. The sound is presented in English 2.0, with just the trailer and previews for other Shameless releases rounding out the package.
If you're looking for something subversive, then look away. There's nothing to see here. If however, you are looking for a bona fide post-pub classic, then RATMAN could sate your appetite.
(Paul Alaoui)
