The always excellent and very sadly missed David Warbeck and the ever lovely Janet Agren star in this creepy Italian effort from 1988.
The plot (what there is of it) involves a rat/monkey hybrid that escapes from captivity and goes on a killing spree on a tropical island.
Interestingly, this was written by Dardano Sacchetti and Elisa Briganti who also wrote the screenplays for Lucio Fulci's classic zombie fest 'Zombie Flesh Eaters' aka 'Zombi' aka Zombi 2 (and a plethora of other names besides) and a great number of other films which also happen to be set on tropical islands and in other exotic locations hmmmm I wonder ..perhaps a ploy by the writers to cadge free holidays?
Anyway back to the film in question......
Also present on the island are a photographer and his models who are performing a glossy shoot (cue a fair bit of time padding as we see the models going through their paces)
Well you know the equation here; Horror movie + Models = Victims.
Sure enough, they begin to fall foul to our diminutive, poisonous clawed beastie who promptly sets about gnawing on them with great gusto.
Enter Warbeck and Agren's characters .
Warbeck is a crime author visiting the island for a bit of inspiration whilst Agren plays a woman who has been summoned to the island by the local law enforcement authorities in order to identify the body of her missing sister at the morgue.
The two end up sharing a taxi and Warbeck (hungry for a story) accompanies Agren to the morgue. As it happens, the body uncovered turns out luckily, not to be her sister after all. In fact the sister is none other than one of the (still surviving) photographic models who is at the same time nonetheless very much in grave peril from our little rodent/simian killer.
Will our intrepid investigators locate and save our hapless model in time? How many more victims will Ratman claim? Could the film makers have found any worse voice over artists? You'll have to watch to find out!
The film itself is basically a no thrills slasher picture at heart and unforgivably devotes far too much of its running time on needless padding such as the aforementioned photo-shoots along with various other meandering tactics.
It has to be said to, that Warbeck and Agren are dreadfully wasted in this and are given absolutely nothing whatsoever to do in the film of any real interest.
However the film does have a few points to raise it above the average mark ..
One is an incredible nude shower scene featuring the beautiful Eva Grimaldi which was obviously designed (very successfully I might add!) to get all us chaps salivating.
The other is the incredibly exploitative casting of Nelson De La Rosa, the world's smallest actor as the eponymous Ratman. I must say that the creature realisation is incredibly creepy looking as are some of the ways in which it rears its ugly head ..
Being as small as it is, the little terror amongst other places hides in a toilet bowl (!), a fridge (!!) and in another scene a hold all (!!!) YIKES!!!
To summarise, this is an admittedly formulaic slasher flick but one that also features one hell of a memorable and scary critter. Once you've seen Ratman, you'll certainly never forget him!
The plot (what there is of it) involves a rat/monkey hybrid that escapes from captivity and goes on a killing spree on a tropical island.
Interestingly, this was written by Dardano Sacchetti and Elisa Briganti who also wrote the screenplays for Lucio Fulci's classic zombie fest 'Zombie Flesh Eaters' aka 'Zombi' aka Zombi 2 (and a plethora of other names besides) and a great number of other films which also happen to be set on tropical islands and in other exotic locations hmmmm I wonder ..perhaps a ploy by the writers to cadge free holidays?
Anyway back to the film in question......
Also present on the island are a photographer and his models who are performing a glossy shoot (cue a fair bit of time padding as we see the models going through their paces)
Well you know the equation here; Horror movie + Models = Victims.
Sure enough, they begin to fall foul to our diminutive, poisonous clawed beastie who promptly sets about gnawing on them with great gusto.
Enter Warbeck and Agren's characters .
Warbeck is a crime author visiting the island for a bit of inspiration whilst Agren plays a woman who has been summoned to the island by the local law enforcement authorities in order to identify the body of her missing sister at the morgue.
The two end up sharing a taxi and Warbeck (hungry for a story) accompanies Agren to the morgue. As it happens, the body uncovered turns out luckily, not to be her sister after all. In fact the sister is none other than one of the (still surviving) photographic models who is at the same time nonetheless very much in grave peril from our little rodent/simian killer.
Will our intrepid investigators locate and save our hapless model in time? How many more victims will Ratman claim? Could the film makers have found any worse voice over artists? You'll have to watch to find out!
The film itself is basically a no thrills slasher picture at heart and unforgivably devotes far too much of its running time on needless padding such as the aforementioned photo-shoots along with various other meandering tactics.
It has to be said to, that Warbeck and Agren are dreadfully wasted in this and are given absolutely nothing whatsoever to do in the film of any real interest.
However the film does have a few points to raise it above the average mark ..
One is an incredible nude shower scene featuring the beautiful Eva Grimaldi which was obviously designed (very successfully I might add!) to get all us chaps salivating.
The other is the incredibly exploitative casting of Nelson De La Rosa, the world's smallest actor as the eponymous Ratman. I must say that the creature realisation is incredibly creepy looking as are some of the ways in which it rears its ugly head ..
Being as small as it is, the little terror amongst other places hides in a toilet bowl (!), a fridge (!!) and in another scene a hold all (!!!) YIKES!!!
To summarise, this is an admittedly formulaic slasher flick but one that also features one hell of a memorable and scary critter. Once you've seen Ratman, you'll certainly never forget him!