Willard (1971)

3.5 / 5
Tagline: Where your nightmares end...WILLARD begins.

Directed by: Daniel Mann

Written by: Gilbert Ralston
Actors include: Bruce Davison, Elsa Lanchester, Ernest Borgnine
Genre: Horror, Drama
Length: 95 minutes
Banned: Nope

Review:

There is something wonderfully campy about this even though very little happens for a long time. Willard is a poor sad sack, he lives with his Mother and keeps to himself, he's also pushed around at his job by his boss Mr. Martin (played perfectly wickedly by Ernest Borgnine). Thing is, Willard is kind of a lazy jerk who has it coming to him which makes it a little hard to take his side, but eventually when things are pushed quite far I started to sympathize a tad. See Willard is pretty miserable and when Mother dies he's left with anger issues and only rats for friends. He starts putting them in his basement and before long it's filled with the yappy little rodents. Oddly enough he has a lady friend at work (who was hired to help him catch up at work) and they start to be slightly romantic but the basement full of rats is a slight hindrance. He doesn't seem to mind so much and even takes to bringing rats Socrates and Ben to work with him...until Mr. Martin kills Socrates! It's not a very effective "horror" film, but it is a rather compellingly strange drama about a Man who is losing it and his rat friends. At least there is some revenge here and although it's a bit dull at first it really does pick up. Not the classic I'd hoped it would be yet somehow still charming in a weird sort of way.

Availability:  Never on DVD