Giuliano Carnimeo's Ratman (1988)

A British scientist living in the Caribbean has high expectations for his latest experiment (maybe a Nobel prize and international fame and fortune). The scientist has successfully crossbred Rattus norvegicus and Homo sapien to produce the titular character of one of Giuliano Carnimeo's last directorial credits, Ratman (1988), portrayed by Nelson de la Rosa. Before the good scientist can show off his creation at the latest scientific expo, the hybrid creature escapes. Meanwhile models, Marlis (Eva Grimaldi) and Peggy (Luisa Menon), are getting their photos snapped by Mark (Werner Pochath) on the beach. The day's shoot concludes. Mark is taking Marlis deeper into the jungle for more photos the following day, and Peggy is flying back to New York. Mark develops his photos that evening and notices something unusual in the corner of one of his photographs (but can't really make it out). Peggy is on the town en route to a party and when her cab breaks down, she has to trek to the bus station on foot through a dark alley. A psycho is on the loose, and Peggy captures his eye. She manages to duck into a dark house and hide in the closet. Unfortunately, a diminutive clawed creature has already taken up residence within. Enter lovely Terry (Janet Agren) who arrives at the airport and encounters television mystery writer, Fred (David Warbeck). They share a cab into town. Terry's destination is the morgue. Apparently her model sister was murdered. Fred has a good heart, a nose for investigation, and an eye for Terry. He'll help her out.

In an excellent book of interviews, Spaghetti Nightmares, legendary producer Fabrizio De Angelis is asked: What can you tell us about Quella villa in fondo al parco (Ratman)...? His terse answer: Well...I had problems with the director, Carnimeo. I don't think it was one of my most successful productions...[I edited out of the question and answer an additional query and response into another De Angelis production].

Actor and genre legend, David Warbeck is interviewed later in Spaghetti Nightmares and has this to say about the production: when asked, "That film was officially directed by Giuliano Carmineo, but there seems to be a suspicion that Fabrizio De Angelis was really the guilty man...," Warbeck responds:

No, he was the producer and he set everything going, but the other guy...I though he was OK. We didn't fight, I just thought he was a bit of a lost cause, and this is where Fabrizio stepped in and whipped the thing into shape a bit. The other guy didn't know what he was doing, or maybe he didn't really want to do it; I just couldn't work it out. What can I say? The whole thing was complete madness, but, yes, it did do very well.

Despite its leading man and producer having few nice things to say about Ratman's veteran director Giuliano Carnimeo, he has made some notable works. My favorites are his giallo, What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing on Jennifer's Body? (1973), Secrets of a Call Girl (1973), Poker in Bed (1974), all with Edwige Fenech, his Western, Man Called Invincible (1973), and his 80s post-nuke contribution, Exterminators in the Year 3000 (1983). Carnimeo's work doesn't easily fit into any auteur theory and it's often competent and professional.

If Fabrizio De Angelis wasn't producing notable Italian genre cinema in the 80s, he was directing it. Rabid fans of Italian 80s genre cinema (of which I am a very proud member) owe a big thanks to the man. Some of my favorite production credits of his are (inhales): Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979), The Beyond (1981), The House by the Cemetery (1981), The New York Ripper (1982), Marino Girolami's Zombie Holocaust (1980), Enzo G. Castellari's 1990: Bronx Warriors (1982), Tonino Ricci's Raiders of the Magic Ivory (1988), and Luigi Cozzi's Paganini Horror (1989). Let's not forget about his directorial credits, and alongside Bruno Mattei, De Angelis consistently directed some of the best Italian action films of the period. Some of my favorites are: the Thunder series (three films in 1983, 1987 and 1988), Deadly Impact (1984), Man Hunt (1984), and one of the best, Cobra Mission (1986) (exhales).

The screenwriter of Ratman, Dardano Sacchetti, is also legendary. Two of his earliest screenwriting credits are on Mario Bava's excellent and influential Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971) and Dario Argento's A Cat O'Nine Tails (1971). With approximately fifty screenwriting credits in the 80s alone, Sacchetti was a major figure in Italian genre cinema (his 70s work is very notable, as well). My carpal tunnel syndrome will explode my hands if I attempt to list my favorites here. I recommend clicking the link above to peruse his credits. In Spaghetti Nightmares during his interview Sacchetti is asked, "How do you manage to write so many scripts?" His response: On average I write five or six a year, but I write every day, including Sundays. I enjoy writing and I think a good story is always better than good directing, which is another reason why I've never gotten behind the camera.

In addition to the talent behind the camera, Ratman boast four actors who all made notable contributions and/or are stalwarts of Italian genre cinema (especially their 80s work): Warbeck, Agren, Grimaldi, and Pochath. One of the reasons that I love the cinema from the Italians during the 80s is because it appears the entire industry was feeling the crunch the American blockbuster. The cinema feels, on the whole, driven by a desire to produce pure entertainment and pure exploitation: a little money in the participants' pockets and lots of tremendous fun to be had by the viewer. The 80s is Italian genre cinema's magic hour, and in a lot of ways, Ratman feels like a swan song.

The biggest flaw of Carnimeo's film is the lack of screen time that Warbeck and Agren receive. Their two characters drive the story through their investigation of the rodent murders, and when they are on screen, they feel like cogs in the wheel. Possessing an immediate chemistry and both with the ability to pull off wonderful humor, the two's ability is lost. When they are on screen, they're a lot of fun to watch. Eva Grimaldi as Marlis truly drives the story. Ratman's viewer gets treated to the lovely lady during a swimsuit photo shoot and another where she pulls off her best Flashdance moves. Extremely charismatic, Grimaldi brings a lot of enthusiasm to her role, as ultimately the Ratman's biggest obsession. Either the director, the producer, or the screenwriter should have kept the focus on Marlis and cut the Warbeck/Agren plotline. Ratman would become more of a straight horror film, and the attempt to have Warbeck and Agren provide romance or mystery to the story never happens anyway. Carnimeo's scare scenes range from effective, as with the earlier sequence with Peggy, to hilariously bad, as when Ratman pops out of the toilet for a scare. When the short running time of Ratman ended, I had a complete smile on my face. If one can get past the ludicrous premise of the film (a half-rat/half-man killer); its low budget and highly sensational elements; and the occasional dip into ineptitude and disbelief, then...well, you probably won't see Ratman, because after that, not much is left. However, if you love all of those elements, then you're probably like me a fan of Italian 80s genre cinema and will highly enjoy Ratman.

Alberto De Martino's Miami Golem (1985)

A glass jar filled with fluid. Half empty or half full? Fluid displaced? With what? A golem, born from the DNA found in the bacteria of a meteorite fallen to Earth. The glass jar is in Miami, FL in an underground, super-secret lab. The fate of the world is at risk. David Warbeck has his gun and is out to save us in Alberto De Martino's Miami Golem (1985).

David Warbeck is Craig Milford, a television reporter, whose latest assignment is interviewing Dr. Schweiger, who has culled the DNA from a bacterium found within a space meteorite. Schweiger believes the DNA is extra-terrestrial in origin, and his hypothesis is that the DNA contains the original strains for humankind. Craig could give a crap. He has to stay late and with clunky, special filming equipment shoot footage of the DNA under the microscope. Craig's equipment malfunctions, and a surge of electricity goes through the alien DNA. Wailing ghostly heads appear when this happens, and Craig captures their images with his video camera. Meanwhile, sinister and nefarious Anderson (John Ireland) is in the Everglades, listening to a UFO enthusiast tell him about a powerful alien life form about to awaken on Earth. Anderson has his henchman shoot the kook, only then to send him to the lab to obtain the DNA. Anderson's henchman ices everyone with a beaker in his hand and grabs Dr. Schweiger's booty. Anderson has world domination in mind, and his secret team of scientists have introduced the DNA to a fleshy embryo, now growing at a rapid rate (with telekinetic powers). The good guys, a.k.a. the extra-terrestrials, recruit Craig to save the world and stop the evil. Craig sighs.

Because he's played this role before, David Warbeck could also sigh. Always the consummate professional however, Warbeck delivers another charismatic performance to add to his impressive list of credits which have made him an Italian genre cinema legend. New Zealand-born Warbeck worked in Italian films in the 70s (for example, in a similar role in Tonino Ricci's Panic (1976)), but it was his work in the 80s where he really blossomed. His appearance in the explosive actioner, The Last Hunter (1980) would not only help kick off the Italian action movie trend in the 80s but also began a creative collaboration with its director, Antonio Margheriti, which would span five works (with my favorites being the Indiana Jones-inspired The Hunters of the Golden Cobra (1982) and Ark of the Sun God (1983)). Warbeck made two fantastic films with Lucio Fulci: The Black Cat (1981) and The Beyond (1981). Subsequent to Miami Golem, Warbeck would re-team with De Martino for the mystery, Formula for a Murder (1987). Warbeck would end the eighties with a very entertaining oddity, Giuliano Carnimeo's Ratman (1988), but Miami Golem is arguably Warbeck's most fun and most odd film of the 80s.

Warbeck has never been an imposing figure physically, and there is no evidence to believe that his character Craig Milford would be a force to be reckoned with. After Anderson has the DNA he sends his henchman to kill Craig as a preventive measure. Craig gets a phone call from his editor which sends him to an abandoned field. A helicopter appears out of nowhere with a machine-gun toting bad guy on its side. Craig, in true local t.v. reporter fashion, pulls a handgun from his glove compartment and takes cover in the sole foliage of the open field. Even more jarring a slow-moving yellow school bus appears out of nowhere, not filled with children but just housing a couple of regular dudes. Warbeck's Craig pleads for the bus to stop but with the machine gun fire, the bus ain't stopping. Luckily the bus is only moving at about five miles an hour, and the Emergency Exit door on the back is absent. Craig climbs the bus and with a marksman shot takes out the helicopter. "Did you just shoot a helicopter from a moving bus with a handgun?" asks one of the guys on the bus. Warbeck gives a fittingly incredulous smile.

Those mysterious floating heads caught by Craig on video lead Joanna Fitzgerald (Laura Trotter) into his arms. Joanna poses as a translator and offers to decipher the wails and moans on the video. Etruscan? Atlantean? Pre-Colombian? From another dimension? The two become allies against the evil. Trotter and Warbeck have an immediate chemistry, and their romance is light and cute. Several of the best action sequences take place in the Everglades, and Trotter and Warbeck appear in a well-filmed air-boat sequence. The best action, however, is reserved for the final act, as Joanna attempts with telepathy to keep the evil embryo in the glass jar in check by remote mind control while Warbeck's Craig packs some heat to go to the lab for a final confrontation. Never in my life have I witnessed a confrontation such as man versus embryo in a large glass jar. Brilliant and sublime.

Alberto De Martino is an underrated Italian genre director. With a career spanning many films in different genres, some of my favorites are The Counsellor (1973), The Antichrist (1974), Rain of Fire (1977), and perhaps his best film, the giallo/crime hybrid, Blazing Magnums (1976). By the time the 80s rolled around and in the latter part of his career, De Martino had honed his craft and could probably shoot a low-budget sci-fi actioner with his eyes closed. Miami Golem is super-slick looking: the action sequences are tops, the creature fx (by Sergio Stivaletti) are cheesy yet effective, and the visual effects look professional despite its budget. Of course, the story and the dialogue are wonderfully ludicrous and laughable, but all credit goes to the participants, especially Warbeck. Most actors, perhaps, would contemplate the state of their careers after having said some of the lines within Miami Golem, but not Warbeck: his enthusiasm is infectious, his boyish good looks carry his charisma, and his acting is always professional. Miami Golem is a fine example of 80s Italian genre cinema and would make a great double bill with Nello Rosati's Top Line (1988). See it.

Tonino Ricci's Panic (1976)

Jane (Janet Agren) is working in her lab, when she notices two caged rats going at each other and an alarm goes off. The alarm signals a breach in the lab's security of a possible viral contagion. Her chemical company and the local government near London want to keep the breach hush-hush to prevent a public panic. Meanwhile, a cute young couple are shagging in their automobile. The couple is attacked, mutilated, and killed. The cops investigate the murder and call in Captain Kirk: no, not William Shatner but my main man, David Warbeck. Kirk learns of the breach in the lab and when he follows up with Jane, he learns that Professor Adams is missing, the brilliant scientist who was working on a new project. Is there any link between the contagion, the murders, and the recently-missing Professor Adams in Tonino Ricci's Panic (1976)? Panic is a patchwork quilt of would-be plotlines. For example, when Kirk visits Jane on his initial investigation and learns that Professor Adams is missing, the two go to Adams's retreat out in the country to search for clues. Finding the professor's dead bodyguard at his hideaway, the sequence, at first blush, looks like the beginning of a mystery and blossoming romance between Kirk and Jane, as the two exchange jokes and stumble upon clues. The murder scenes are shot like a slasher flick: Ricci uses the camera's p.o.v. to mimic the monster stalking, slowly and creepily upon his victims. Around the end of the first act, the film kicks into panic mode, as scenes are shown of soldiers in trucks roaming the streets in their gas masks and hazmat outfits. Kirk, however, donning a tan raincoat is still investigating the murders, like a old-time private eye. He and a police officer head underground to look for clues of the monster; while above ground, in a fantastic sequence, the monster attacks in a full movie theatre. Grabbing a young lady and throwing her over its shoulder, the monster finds solace in the projection room where his dinner can be eaten. By the time the final act begins, the government has quarantined the English town and the citizens have moved into the titular panic and begin rioting.Ricci has seemingly never had a fondness or a patience for plotlines. Ricci loves the action sequences and the more the merrier. For example, his best film, The Big Family (1973) is really a series of exciting mob hits tied together with the most perfunctory plot line. When he tackles tiburons and aliens in The Shark's Cave (1978) or aliens in an underground kingdom in Encounters in the Deep (1979), Ricci could care less why his characters are in the water, just as long as the sharks are in a willing frenzy or the aliens are ready to take over the world. I love the man's cinema, so if Ricci can give me some seriously enthusiastic sequences, I'm sold. Yes, I'm a cheap date, and Ricci delivers. The monster in the movie theatre is standout: to watch the rubber-suited monster writhe in pain as the awful film plays on the screen, only to claw through the screen and scare the hell out of the patrons is true B-movie gold. When the monster attacks in two sequences unsuspecting families, the viewer thinks that it's Ricci in the monster suit, because there is so much enthusiasm. To his credit, Ricci actually links all of these disparate scenes together with a very thin visual cue but linked nonetheless. Janet Agren's Jane is sorely underused. Agren as an actress has been underused in her career. Often just eye candy, as in Giuseppe Bennati's underrated giallo, The Killer Reserved Nine Seats (1974), or as a collateral character, as in Carlo Vanzina's Mystère (1983), as Carole Bouquet's friend, Agren briefly gets to show her charisma and range. When Agren is given a substantial role, for example, as the pretty lady who runs the truckstop in Sergio Martino's Hands of Steel (1986), she often steals her scenes and shines brightly. This is the second film that I can recall where Ricci doesn't use Agren enough, and I wish there were more scenes with her.

David Warbeck, like Agren, is a Eurocult legend. Warbeck made some phenomenal flicks with Antonio Margheriti, such as The Last Hunter (1980), The Hunters of the Golden Cobra (1982), Tiger Joe (1982), and Ark of the Sun God (1983), which really defined and shaped Italian 80s action movies. Warbeck also appeared in a little-known film by an obscure director during this period, Lucio Fulci's The Beyond (1981) that's really popular with the young folks. Warbeck's good in this role. He can smoke a cigarette and wield a gun with the best of them.I've probably had more fun with Panic than would most viewers. I absolutely love films that coast on fumes financially but are guzzling an endless supply of enthusiasm and fun. By no means a cinema classic, Panic is a Ricci classic, which is quite all right with me.