Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The Couchpotatoes I watched this movie with an open mind, knowing it was made in 1983, and so not to expect staggering special effects when it comes to the horror part. The story is, as you could guess, about the battle between a man and a rat. A rat invading his private space, the house he completely renovated. It's almost a one man movie, with Peter Weller as the main character. Sure there are other actors in Of Unknown Origin, but the main story is just the battle between Peter Weller and the rat. Seeing Peter Weller turning from a normal human being to a psychotic obsessed person was a clever move in this movie. It makes it interesting to watch. Good acting with a simple but effective story.

ferbs54 Speaking as a native New Yorker, I would hazard a guess that the two things my fellow residents here fear the most, when it comes to their apartment or dwelling place, are (a) bedbugs and (b) rodents. Those bloodsucking little insects were on the wane for many decades, but have unfortunately made a comeback in recent years, and while not disease carriers, are notoriously difficult and expensive to eliminate. As for the latter, well, the sight of a scurrying mouse in the house is surely enough to startle even the toughest of Big Apple dwellers. But the thought of a rat--the larger-size rodent that most New Yorkers only see on the subway tracks underground--getting INSIDE one's residence is one that is certain to engender nightmares. This fear was only made worse a little while ago, with the online emergence of a video showing how easily the whiskered horrors can climb up the plumbing of a house or apartment building and enter one's abode through the toilet! Thus, it was with a feeling of facing my own worst fears that I sat down to watch the 1983 Canadian film "Of Unknown Origin" the other night, a film that spotlights just such a conundrum faced by one very unfortunate New Yorker.In the film, the viewer meets an up-and-coming young executive named Bart Hughes, played by the immensely likable Peter Weller, here four years before his megabreakthrough role in "RoboCop." Bart would seem to have it all: a beautiful blonde wife (former Playmate of the Year Shannon Tweed, here in her first film), a cute little son, and a job at a major banking company, Commercial American Trust (CAT?), at which he is working on a big promotion and a $25K raise. He is also the owner of a gorgeous NYC brownstone (in truth, the building looks more like a castle than anything else, and the film was actually shot in Montreal) that he has recently renovated by himself. When his wife and son go away to Vermont to visit her father, Bart is left alone to concentrate on his latest work project, but the only thing is...he is not QUITE alone. A chewed-through wire in his dishwasher, weird pattering noises, ripped-up bags of food in the pantry, and other hints lead Bart to the inescapable conclusion that a rat has somehow gained entrance to his "House Beautiful" sanctuary. He leaves traps, which are shredded by the creature; he leaves poison, which is ignored; he ensconces a street cat in his apartment, and the cat is later found to be a bloody corpse lying on top of his refrigerator! Bart later discovers a clutch of baby rats in his boiler room basement, by which fact he knows that he is dealing with a female rat...the more vicious of the breed. And after Bart is repeatedly attacked and bitten and scratched by the creature, and after his office work begins to suffer due to his obsession at home, he decides to gear up and do final battle with the darn pesky invader once and for all....For anyone who has ever dealt with an unwelcome animal intruder in his or her abode, "Of Unknown Origin" will surely be a nerve-racking experience. I concur wholeheartedly with my beloved "Psychotronic Video Guide" in its pronouncement that the film is "better than you'd expect," and would even go further to say that this is one absolutely terrific little exercise in horror and suspense. Director George P. Cosmatos, who had previously helmed "The Cassandra Crossing" and would go on to direct the Stallone films "Rambo: First Blood, Part II" and "Cobra," expertly ratchets up the tension here, while his leading man remains perfectly cool. Indeed, Bart manages to stay much more levelheaded than most New Yorkers would when faced with the situation of a superintelligent, squealing, and exceptionally malicious rodent in his/her apartment. When Bart walks into his house, he yells out "Darling, I'm home"; when the Rattus rattus (or whatever the hell the thing is) chews through his pad's electrical wiring, plunging the place into darkness, Bart, casually munching on a pickle, mutters "Well, I wondered when you'd get around to that." He is exceptionally well suited to deal with his household menace, as it turns out, especially when he does suit up at the end--with hockey leggings, a miner's hat with flashlight attached, and a baseball bat equipped with nails as a makeshift mace--to engage in battle royale.If I had one small problem with this film, it is that we never get a good solid establishing shot of the rat in question, with the exception of a few shots toward the end, when the darn thing jumps onto Bart's back, and we see that it is the size of a large house cat! Until then, we'd only seen the thing in extreme close-up shots of its ugly face, and via "Jaws"-like POV shots through its own eyes. But this is a minor matter. "Of Unknown Origin" essentially does for rats what "Jaws" did for sharks, and avoiding one's own apartment is a lot more difficult than avoiding the ocean! As for Bart, I will reveal that he does seem to be in store for that $25K raise. And he'll be needing it...to fix up his battered town house again! You know, it just occurred to me that you can't spell "Bart" without the letters R-A-T....

mpstjohn You know that one guy who'd do anything to get you fired, destroy your house, alienate you from your friends and family, chew through your surge protector? You know, the usual. Well, imagine if that guy was a poodle-sized sewer rat.I wondered going into this movie why Peter Weller would agree to star in what is essentially the rat-equivalent of Jaws: The Revenge. I got my answer about twenty seconds into the film, where it opens on a shot of Shannon Tweed, playing Weller's wife here, showering. Umm, okay.She leaves, along with Weller's extremely dimwitted kid to stay at a hotel (only to pop up later in the movie scantily-clad back in her hotel or in a dream sequence in order to meet some strange 80s boob quota I suppose).Weller is doing fine by himself, (staying behind to finish some work), until the dishwasher overflows, eventually upsetting a rat who decides to move into his apartment. Its hard to gauge just how big this thing is supposed to be until it decides to crawl up under the covers in Weller's bed later, apparently he's the size of a tomcat.Weller does his best to get rid of the rat, upgrading from normal rat traps to (what are basically) miniature bear traps. When the medieval rat traps don't work or come back gnawed on he decides to get a cat, which also comes back gnawed on (or replaced with a cheap stuffed animal that resembles his cat). When he decides to ignore the rat he chews on on his surge protector, fuse box, and therein cutting off the power.Weller runs around the house, bashing holes into walls in search of the rat, is plagued by nightmares of birthday parties where the giant rat jumps out of a sheet cake (?), and where his dimwitted kid ends up mixing in various rat poisons in with his cereal. The finale brought to mind Arachnophobia as it ended in a dank basement; the film ending maybe twelve seconds after the rat's been dispatched as Weller brushes himself off as if the last two hours hadn't just happened just in time to greet his wife and kid at the front door. I'm sure they won't notice the completely demolished apartment.

fedor8 This little movie is hardly a must-see. People who got excited by this forgettable mediocrity have probably seen far too few (good) horror films, or are huge Weller fans.I didn't have a problem with a mere rat being such a challenge for what seemed to be an intelligent man, i.e. the absurdity of the premise is acceptable because this is a horror film. However, the only way this film should have been done was to do it as an all-out comedy. Though, even then it would have probably gotten dull sooner rather than later due to its one-joke premise.Maybe if they had made the rat out to be much larger, or if they had gotten him to look like Martin Sheen... Though, admittedly, if we had a Sheen rat we could never believe that he could be that intelligent.Perhaps if it looked like Barbra Streisand...? A Barbra rat would be just as dull-witted as a Sheen rat but at least its nose would have scared everyone - including me. Brrrr!