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STUDIO: Peace Arch Entertainment
MSRP: $19.95
RATED: Unrated
RUNNING TIME: 86 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Making of Feature
• Trailers
The Pitch
“…we can put Tom Sizemore’s name on top of the DVD box!”
“Sold!”
The Humans
Tom Sizemore, Wendy Anderson, Richard Fitzpatrick, Philip Akin, Simon Birchwood, Martin Roach, Amber Cull, and Joe Dinicol
The Nutshell
When Dr. Leech creates a cell healing, cure-all potion for his cancer-ridden wife, but sells the first batch of it to an eccentric billionaire burn victim, problems ensue. The billionaire has his two cronies, Krendal (Wendy Anderson) and Wilkes (Simon Birchwood), beat the scientist within an inch of his life, shoot him twice, and then inject him with Leech’s own cure, just to see if it works.
And it works. It works overtime. Only Dr. Leech isn’t very happy to hear that.
Without the protein supplement packets to go along with the cure, he is healed but the cure doesn’t know when to stop. It keeps breaking down healthy cells, starving him, and causing him to exclaim “I’m hungry! I’m so hungry!” So he does the only thing that a man injected with experimental drugs can do…he starts eating sewer rats. In no time flat, he’s sprouting claws, fangs, a giant, lumpy, hairless, foam rubber body, and a taste for human flesh.
Meanwhile, a group of rag tag grounds crew workers are vying for a stash of money and drugs in some abandoned underground tunnels. They don’t find money or drugs, though, they find the next best thing. A giant rat man.
Everybody feels like a badass once they get
Mission: Impossible 2 installed on their glasses.
The Lowdown
Tom Sizemore plays Vince Stoker, the leader of the grounds crew, along with his co-worker Otis (Martin Roach), his niece Sam (Amber Cull), and 20-something-slacker Callum (Joe Dinicol). Dinicol should get a special mention, because he is the worst part of this film. He looks like the poor man’s James Franco spliced with a rejected character design from Final Fantasy VII. He walks around, says annoying things, wonders why people hate him and then insists that Vince’s niece likes him. He even uses the astoundingly clever “She wants me” line, which he says to himself after she threatens his life. Fresh!
Special mention should also be made for Wendy Anderson, who plays the hard ass, Krendal. Her talents might overshadow everyone else, though it’s not because of her remarkable skills as a thespian. It’s because of her uncanny ability to look exactly like Jodie Foster, Julianne Moore, or Diane Lane when the light hits her face just right.
"So, uhmm…uhh…how do you want to do this?"
Does the film have its moments? Certainly. There’s a knife fight between the billionaire’s silent, Asian, bodyguard and the rat monster that ends with a spectacular slap to the face/beheading. There’s the way Tom Sizemore delivers all his lines (and if there is any reason to watch this movie, it’s Mr. Sizemore). You get the sense that he’s not actually acting at all. In fact, the movie gets a little better if you pretend that Sizemore is playing himself, and this was recorded by a documentary crew following him around as he smokes pot and cleans up the neighborhood parks. Had the movie not ended the way it did, this could have been a great start to a very profitable series of “Tom Sizemore vs…..” direct-to-DVD horror movies.
The main problem with the film is that nobody (besides Sizemore) seems to realize the type of movie they’re in. They’re either not taking it serious enough, or not playing it over the top enough. If the actor’s had been having any fun at all they could have (maybe) elevated the weak script into something worth watching for kitsch-value alone.
"…yeah, it’s been pretty intense so far. My hectic schedule
doesn’t allow for…what?…this?…oh, this is from when I
killed the Dolly Grip. Why? He was giving me a hard time
about Dreamcatcher. You like Dreamcatcher… don’t you?"
The Package
There is a small behind-the-scenes featurette that contains some embarrassing moments with writer/director Randy Daudlin. On set footage of him describing to the man in the rat suit how he wants him to lope around like a hunchback. Or during an interview, telling us that he just wants to take the audience on a non-stop thrill ride from his “sick imagination.” Please. People who brag about their sick imaginations are almost as bad as the people who wear the “Voices in my head” shirts, in all of their variations. There are a few short interviews with Tom Sizemore, though, who is covered in blood and seemingly oblivious to it. A few trailers are thrown on the DVD as well.
5 out of 10