Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

billcr12 I first saw this film in 1971 and just watched it again 47 years later. The only line I remembered was tear him up. I will not explain the line. A young man working in an office and living with his mother in a grand old California house is befriended by some rats who he feeds every day. Of course, he is treated badly by his boss and eventually gets revenge by using his rodent buddies. Ernest Borgnine is the bad guy and he is hilarious. The movie is quite campy and it is highly entertaining. This ain't high art but it is worth it for a few laughs.

Darth-Helmet Willard Stiles (Bruce Davison) is a social misfit with a lousy job ran by a boss named Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine) and a dominating mother named Henrietta (Elsa Lancaster). He makes friends down in the basement with rats even a big one which he names as Ben, he not only can communicate with the rats but they can follow his command even to kill people.Co-starring Sandra Locke, this 1971 horror thriller is one of the better killer animal movies. This movie kicked off Bruce's career and this movie was shot on a small budget by Cinerama releasing and became a surprise box-office hit in the summer of 1971. After this movie's success Borgine was offered higher salary since then, the film spawned a sequel and a remake in 2003. Based on an obscure novel called "The Ratman's notebooks", this is a chilling and very enjoyable killer rat take on Psycho and quite similar in aspects to Hitchcock's masterpiece. This movie with Jaws's success lead to killer animal films that dominated the 70s and early 80s and made people fear rats. I like Davison's performance as the social misfit turned villain and Willard is a sympathetic character you feel bad for and feel like booing at his boss Al Martin whom was superbly performed by Ernest Borgnine and the mother was nicely performed by the Bride of Frankenstein herself.

GL84 Working in a dead-end job, a young man living in an oppressive relationship with his mother and his boss who lord their power and authority over him until he finds the rats in his house can obey his commands and uses them to unleash his vengeance against them.This here wasn't all that bad of an effort. One of the few things it does right here is give this one a strong and enjoyable need for the work life to become the need for him to snap. The oppressive attitude and overt bullying tactics here really make for quite the troublesome situation to really make for a necessary time of it all, as there's plenty to work with here as to the berating and verbal abuse he gets hurled at him sets up that section of the film nicely. As well, the home-life where he's guilt-tripped into basically being her slave manages to feature plenty of those same tactics to get him into that same setup where both sections of his life give him some solid opportunities to embark upon his revenge. Those scenes are where this one really works, as the initial scenes of him unleashing the rats at the party or using them to go after the group that wronged him in the series of attacks on their house or the work office as these provide the film with some nice action. The two big swarming scenes score well, though, from the group coming upon and taking out the boss in the factory to the big chase through the house itself which has a frantic sense of chaos. These here give this one some likable qualities, although it does have plenty of flaws. The biggest issue with this one is the exceptionally bland setup here that doesn't make this in the slightest bit interesting. Since it's all about the idea of the humiliation and getting him up for later, this one doesn't have a lot of action to really get invested in which makes it feel like nothing is really happening. That this goes for the prototypical means of physical and verbal abuse in the form of parental guilt-trips, screaming at him for no reason or blowing events way out of proportion just to make a point in front of others. These aren't that interesting or exciting and it manages to really cause this one to stretch out it's running time unnecessarily. As well, this one also doesn't make any rational explanation as for why he goes for the rats as his friend since they show up one day and he makes the best of it. That doesn't give this any kind of reasoning as for why he would take them on so it just tends to feel silly that he takes on the creatures as his pets. The other big problem is the rushed nature of the finale which comes way too quickly and doesn't feel justified given the extended nature it should've had. These here really hold this one down.Rated PG: Violence, Language and violence-against-animals.

marcusbrainard Willard was a good movie & Ernest Borgnine earned his pay. When they lose his character by rats. A stunt double didn't want to be covered with rats & Ernest Borgnine did the stunt work his character was written off. In "Convoy" as Sheriff Lyle Wallace aka Dirty Lyle one thing Dirty Lyle don't want is face a black girl named Denise Willard & her "Rat Pack" and this ghetto princess would be a "Dr. Ashida" to rats showed Dirty Lyle giant rats. Ernie Borgnine was a great performer as they say, "Old Movies Stars may die, but they never fade away!" Dirty Lyle, beware of the inner-city girl & her giant rats. And having my mind like "Dr. Ashida" from a Jonny Quest episode.