Willard
Directed by: Glen Morgan
Starring: Crispin Glover, R. Lee Ermy, Laura Harring, Jackie Burroughs
Rated: PG-13
Parental Notes: although probably too intense for youngsters or those with phobias around rats, “Willard” will doubtless be enjoyed by teens with a taste for the macabre.
Take two creative talents from “The X-Files” in its heyday, one actor known for playing twitchingly creepy characters, and about five hundred rats. Add perfect sets, a simple approach to filmmaking, and boil down to a thick, blood-tinted wash. The result is “Willard,” a film so unnerving in its simplicity that its gothic air seeps under your skin and rustles behind you like scampering rodents.
Willard Stiles (Crispin Glover) is miserable at work, where his boss (R. Lee Ermy) belittles and humiliates him, and at home, where his mother criticizes and guilt-trips him. He has no friends until he sets traps for the rats his mother hears in their basement and catches, unharmed, an elegant white rat. Moved by its piteous struggles, he rescues it and names the rat Socrates. When it displays affection for him, he cares for it and the other rats rather than exterminating them as his bedridden mother ordered.
He soon discovers that both Socrates and a huge rat he comes to call Ben can understand his commands and pass them along to the easily swayed remainder of his new rodent cadre. Willard spends hours training his furry friends and uses them to exact a simple, yet very appropriate, revenge on his boss.
Before long, however, conflict arises between Willard and the aggressive and jealous Ben, and he learns that while the other rats will always follow Socrates or Ben, they won’t necessarily obey Willard himself. Things disintegrate further when a horrible accident befalls one of the rats and Willard is pushed over the edge.
“Willard” is a film aimed more at getting a cult following than widespread acclaim. Director Glen Morgan and producer James Wong (both alumni of “The X-Files”) have created a gothic fantasy set in a world of dusty mansions, lost family fortunes, and truly evil people. In this world, sons are punished for the foolishness of their parents, evil people eventually get what they deserve, and rats are sleek, handsome animals completely unlike the oily, disgusting creatures of countless other films.
Indeed, the rats are one of the best things about the film. Well-trained and used with skill, the live rats are lithe and unnerving. Their computer and animatronic counterparts are generally quite good as well, twitching, grasping, and reaching with lifelike motion. The enormous Ben is played by the first African Gambian rat to be used in a film. The only flaw in the rats is that they all squeak far louder than in real life. A less zealous soundtrack would have made them both more realistic and more menacing. That aside, though, the rats are brilliant, and thoroughly enjoyable to the right mind.
The overblown story features thoroughly stereotyped characters, but all the actors work to make their performances believable. Glover in particular is a delight to any gothic fan’s heart, all long limbs and twitchy facial muscles. The supporting actors fill their simple characters with life, making it seem as though each is a real person distilled to his or her most basic form. Thus the temp who arrives to help Willard at the office is all kindness, his boss is entirely evil, Willard’s mother is completely repellant.
“Willard” is successful because it has boiled everything down and simply presents a thrilling story with no extra frills. Even the violence is pared down to suspense, a little blood, and the occasional, bout of screaming as the rats claim their victim.
In the end, “Willard” is a delicious gothic treat, a film for those who enjoy the macabre and outr