User Reviews

I just finished watching a little piece of German horror called "Ratten - sie werden dich kriegen!", or better known by its English title of "Revenge of the Rats".

In a nutshell, the movie is about a city (Frankfurt) facing its worst heat wave in 150 years. The city's municipal workers go on strike, leaving the garbage nothing to do but pile up and turn Frankfurt into a really smelly place to live. Eventually, rats begin to take to the streets in search of food. As if an infestation of rodential isn't bad enough, it's soon discovered that the rats are carrying a virus, which makes them hard to kill and deadly to humans.

While everything about this film is that of your typical creature feature, the film itself is not that bad. In fact, it's quite good. The acting is good. Not great, but it's acceptable. The special effects aren't the greatest in the world, but for a film such as this, they're quite alright. And while this is a horror film, don't go into the movie looking for a shock a minute. Or buckets of blood for that matter. If this film isn't something, it's gory. About as bloody as it gets is someone getting bit on the hand. There are a couple of scenes that let your imagination fill in the blanks, which is always a plus in any film.

Probably about the only people this might disturb are those who have a fear of rats. Trust me, there are a lot of rats in this. But with a name like "Revenge of the Rats", what else would you expect? As a rat lover myself, I wasn't bothered at all by the presence of millions of rodential.

My only real problem with the movie, and this is only a very minor nitpick, is that the English version is dubbed. If it were German with English subtitles, I would have been happy. What also makes me sad is the lack of an option to change the language to German (or any other language for that matter). The options on the DVD are pretty much just the movie and scene selections. But maybe someday I'll get to see the film in all its German glory, but until then, this will have to do.

Movie catastrophes tend to go to extremes in search of deadly threats, or plots that justify a large FX budget. This very good German thriller, instead, increases its dramatic value precisely because it takes a very run-of-the-mill danger, not really appreciated by the public, who ignore that even the cleanest cities in the world have a rate of from six to ten rats per human inhabitant (and really dirty ones, can boast up to a hundred rats per human). The action is placed in Frankfort, where a strike of garbage men and an unusually hot spell result in a massive infestation of the city, overrun by famished, vicious and aggressive rodents. Very much worth seeing, with a good couple of leads played by Ralph Herforth and Ann Cathrin Buhtz. It had to be made in the country of the original Pied Piper of Hamelin...

In Frankfurt, the mayor has a conflict with the garbage men reducing their salaries and their class is now on strike. The heat associated to the garbage bring rats to the city to search food. The helicopter pilot Frank Dabrock (Ralph Herforth) orders to cut the power to the city to save a little girl that is looking for her dog near to a powered electric cable and the Stock Exchange is affected by his act. Dabrock delivers the girl safe and sound to her mother Dr. Katrin (Anne Cathrin Buhtz) but the mayor decides to punish him and transfer Dabrock to work in the rodent control department. Soon Katrin discovers that the rats are carrying a lethal virus and there is no vaccine to cure the humans bitten by them. Meanwhile Dabrock and his team learn that there are thousands of rats in the underground that need to be exterminated but the army has different opinion and quarantine Frankfurt.

"Ratten - sie werden dich kriegen!" is a decent film despite the nasty theme. The special effects are impressive and probably people that have problems with this rodent will be affected. The plot is well resolved and the only remark is the Brazilian DVD that is awfully dubbed in English instead of keeping the original language (German). My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Ataque dos Ratos" ("Attack of the Rats")

I really thoroughly enjoyed this movie. For one it didn't have the corny special effects that the big budget movies have. The acting was decent in this one, only you can tell right off the bat that it's dubbed, but once you get over that fact, and that you can't switch languages on the DVD version it's cool. The plot line was very unique, you take a situation like a heat wave very common around the world, especially in Frankfurt which I've been to many times, and you take a garbage strike which happens often enough in this country and you have a recipe for disaster. i loved how the hordes of rats just went everywhere and how the idea that if you picked up the garbage, that's the last thing you wanna do, you pick it up, the rats don't get what the want, they are in essence following the garbage pick up, so you ask well if garbage men are on strike , who picks up the garbage, private contractors, anyway military wants to quarantine off the city oops wrong thing to do, then you would have all the rats take over the city, then throw in a mayor who wants to keep a lid on the budget, and line her pockets, you have a realistic movie, and the female lead is also a pleasure to watch on the screen, a very decent movie i thought, wish more were made like this, another small nitpick is the depiction of Frankfurt could have been done a little better, but for the average viewer who's never been to Frankfurt... i was born in Germany and been to Frankfurt many times.. it won't matter, but all in all a great big thumbs up.

This movie was recently shown subtitled not dubbed, on Australia's Special Broadcasting Service. I thought I read here that there is sometimes an assumption that *Revenge of the Rats* is a sequel. In fact, the rats are getting revenge for something that is done within this movie, or in human history. There is no prequel as far as I know.

Now, let's get The Pied Piper of Hamelin out of the way. Perhaps this tale crossed my mind when I was watching the film, but that's all. There was the use of the word "coffers" at the end of the movie. A dazed mayor tries to justify her actions by saying "the coffers were empty". "Coffers" isn't a word you hear around much these days, unless you read folk tales to your children, as I do. Since seeing *Revenge of the Rats*, I've read two versions of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Now I see the comparison. A metaphorical fat but literally ugly mayor promises more than the city can afford, to get rid of the rats. This is about as far as I can follow the analogy. The children are not led to a door in a mountain, with one lame boy left behind to tell of a land of winged horses and fountains, where it is always spring and everyone is always happy.

There's a lot that is quite mainstream about this movie. The romance and the resolution especially. The female characters have potentially powerful roles in society but are really quite impotent. Where this film is quite rebellious (as compared with American cinema) is that it is anti-authoritarian. The helicopter pilot is sacked by the mayor for "doing good". The mayor and local government are portrayed as corrupt and pandering to big money. Finally, it is left to one doctor in Frankfurt to solve an epidemic of a fatal and contagious disease. Apparently there is no national Infectious Diseases authority to co-ordinate things or send in back-up.

I'm not a horror aficionado, so any horror I do see is usually mingled with humour. Right from the rat in the blood bank you can see this is going to have the right balance of horror and comedy for most viewers; the huge number of rats is impressive and the horror fans seem to be satisfied too.

I thoroughly enjoyed that movie. It is very good in its genre.

It is thrilling and not overly gorish, provided you don't want to vomit or litterally faint at the sight of one single rat... Because there are lots of them!

I wanted to see what would happen to the endearing protagonists. The actors were pretty good and the children were believable.

All in all, a good 90 minutes "just watch and forget your worries" TV time.

Enjoy!