You notice that there is no rat Beanie Baby. Some critters just cannot be made cuddly and collectible. When it comes to rats, there is no creature on this planet, save for certain trash talk show hosts, independent counsels or sports franchise general managers, who arouse more loathing and disgust.
“They make me shiver,” states one New Yorker in “RAT,” a harrowing documentary available next month on the Vanguard International Cinema label. “They’re dirty, slimy, vicious, ugly-looking things.”
Yes, but they are also brilliant, resiliant and resourceful, natural born invaders and borrowers. Next to man, they are the most successful mammal, and as this film vividly illustrates, they are giving man a good run, or if nothing else, a good scare.
Never mind renting “Scream 2” for heart-stopping horror. “RAT” will, in the words of one exterminator, “make your heart become Kool-Aid.” It makes “Willard” and “Ben” look like “Babe.”
Filmed in New York (East Side, West Side, all around the town) over a period of two years, “RAT,” which was broadcast on “National Geographic Explorer,” was directed by Australia-native Mark Lewis, who also directed “The Wonderful World of Dogs” and “Cane Toads.” Lewis has captured incredible footage of rats “just doing what nature has given them the power to do; just trying to survive.”
Rats, states one observer, are in competition with humans for the same things; structures, food and environment. We see them scurry through the sewers, their pipeline to different neighborhoods and new sources of sustenance. We see them infest homes and bedevil the increasingly desperate residents who are forced to “fight or flee.”
Incredibly, these intrepid souls (recruited by Lewis through newspaper ads prior to research) are featured in re-enactments of their too-close encounters. One gentleman opts to recruit the rats in his ceiling as an instrument of revenge. He cages the rodents and then lets them loose in the kitchen of a restaurant against which he has a grudge.
The metropolis’ beleaguered Rat Patrol exhibit bravado. “It’s a battle between me and them,” states one exterminator. “When I come, they want to get out of the way. They know it’s Joe.”
It is dispiritingly short-lived. The rats are not intimidated. “They just stand on their hind legs and look at you, like, `You ain’t nothin,’ ” says a colleague. “I don’t know whether to leave them alone or just find me another profession,” sighs another.
Though locale-specific, “RAT” is universal. But New York-haters will get a visceral thrill watching the infestation of the Big Apple. (Chicago’s own rat population is estimated to be a mere half million.) And though it is estimated there is one rat for every New Yorker, rats are not Manhattan’s biggest worry. Quotes one statistic, “New Yorkers bitten by rats last year: 184. New Yorkers bitten by other New Yorkers: 1,102.
“RAT” retails for $19.98. To order directly call 800-218-7888.
“RAT”
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