BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

DigitalRevenantX7 Story Synopsis: While travelling across Russia in their carriage, a young Bram Stoker & his father are attacked by bandits accompanied by a horde of rats that devours the driver. Bram kills one of the attackers to protect his father but is captured by the bandits. Taken to their hideout, an old castle, Bram is shocked to discover that the bandits are actually scantily-clad women who shun the rule of men. He is sentenced to die but is saved by one of the "Rat Women" who falls in love with him. The queen of the Rat Women then discover that Bram has formidable writing skills, a discovery that prompts them to use Bram as a PR exercise in order to give them infamy. While some of the Rat Women try to discredit Bram, the local town, having a gutful of their raids, sends a garrison of troops to the castle in order to wipe them out.Film Analysis: Sometimes you've got to love the way Roger Corman operates. When he found out that one of Russia's film studios was going kaput, he decided to cannibalise some of their sets & write a story around it. The subsequent production was produced by Anatoly Fradis, later to become infamous among zombie fans due to his involvement in the ham-fisted sequels RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD: NECROPOLIS & RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD: RAVE TO THE GRAVE. As a horror film, Burial of the Rats is as bare as the chests of the female bandits cavorting around in it. There is a lot of supple flesh on offer here (in particular the love scene between hero Kevin Alber & his love interest Maria Ford) as well as some unintentional laughs to be had with the bandits' pet rats (who act like furry piranhas, turning their victims into bleached skeletons within seconds!).The story is fairly simple – a young Bram Stoker being abducted by a clan of women who despise men, only to become their hero thanks to his lurid tales of their raids – so there is not much to go wrong with it, at least from a narrative point of view. But in their quest to go the cheapest route possible, producer Fradis, director Dan Golden & their writers forget to write an innovative story. Instead they fill the film with blood, sex & killer rats. The story has some really absurd plot devices – the idea of the rats turning their victims into skeletons is a real howler, given that rats are incapable of doing such a feat (at least not within 30 seconds).What elevates this film from forgettable trash to functional mediocrity is the acting. Kevin Alber does a pretty good job of playing a gentleman who has his eyes opened wide enough for him to get the experience needed to write one of horror literature's great masterpieces (the novel Dracula) & even having a little fun doing so. Maria Ford makes a rather bland love interest while Adrienne Barbeau has a lot of fun playing the demented queen of the bandits.

lost-in-limbo Bram Stoker and his father are travelling by horse and carriage, when hooded robbers attack them. Mr Stoker manages to escape, but Bram is taken hostage. They take him back to their hidden lair, where they are revealed to be man-hating women who prefer the company of rats than men. After surviving the tortuous ordeal because of one of his captors. Bram is asked to write down their bold exploits, so that they would become a feared bunch amongst men.T & A, T & A and T & A… oh yeah, you got dirty rodents as well (supposedly hundreds, no thousands). This cheap made for TV Corman production is downright seedy and all about showing a stunning flock of women in very revealing outfits. If they're not venting out their anger towards men, they're dancing about topless for their queen's pure entertainment. Oh joy! How true is it to Bram Stoker's short story? I wouldn't have a clue, but I think it would be far from it. What might have been a classy Gothic tale descends into pure b-grade schlock, but like you would hope, it keeps it lively and fun. For this type of film it's mostly well made and has some not so good (rats getting the munchies and gnawing down their meals in no time) eye-boggling scenes mixed in with bloody slaughtering, cheesy combat and titillating bidding's. Sleaze hounds will be in heaven. Cue gratuitous soft-core activity now. The way the kinky story is staged, it feels like a tame porno crossed corny exploitation. Looking at the cast and Adrienne Barbeau's name sticks out like a sore thumb. What's she doing here… maybe needed the extra doe? But she tremendously hams it up as the Victorian laced Queen of the vermin. Her divine presence chews up the scenery without losing an ounce of dignity. Hows that?! Though her fashion stylist went bananas with that ever-changing hairstyle! The rest of the performances (made up of mostly Russians) are plain stiff, but there are definite beauties lurking. A fairly tempting Maria Ford is easy on the eyes and Kevin Alber steadily chips in as Bram Stoker. Somewhere there about are Linnea Quigley and Nikki Fritz in extremely minor appearances as rat women. The script was filled with banally leaden dialogues and maybe concentrated on that aspect too much. A standard production is on show, but the clammy sets are well adjusted. Intrusive photography (peeping tom in rat vision) and an overbearing music score lashes out. Dan Golden's direction is simply by the numbers and the absurd screenplay is glaringly feisty and heavily plotted. Plotted? Of course, but you know its still rubbish.How bad? Real bad. This embarrassingly cruddy and inane trash entertains in a ridiculously senseless sort of way. Only true aficionados of low-grade camp should bother seeking this one out.

fuzbuni Bought this movie on DVD from a bargain bin and found it was well worth it. As far as eye candy goes there is a lot to see and the gore is all part of the fun. Leaves enough to the imagination. Watch this whenever I have seen something really scary in the news just to make me remember that I can still laugh. Adrienne Barbeau makes the Queen a real delight but I wish she had done a little more. Would have really loved to see a little more of the dungeon just for curiosity....Somehow I doubt that this movie will ever see Canadian TV. Take care....

Goreripper This film exists halfway between softcore lesbian porn and gore-soaked splatter as a cheap exploitation film that tries and then fails to do both, without too much concern for acting or dialogue. Mountains of barely clad female flesh go hand in hand with ridiculous violence in this barely recognisable adaptation of an obscure Bram Stoker story about a coven of rat-worshipping female bandits. While there isn't actually any lesbianism shown on camera the implication of its existence overwhelms virtually every other aspect of `Burial of the Rats'. The story follows the adventure of young Bram Stoker and his father, attacked by the bandits during their travels abroad. The younger Stoker kills one of them and is captured; the elder one tries to convince the local constabulary to search for his missing son even after receiving such matter-of-fact advise as `Go on home, and forget all about your son!' In a matter of hours young Bram has fallen in love with one Barbie-doll proportioned Rat Woman and become sympathetic to the others' cause, even if it entails murderous raids on monasteries and brothels. Meaningless topless dancing scenes and silly violence follow, including a gratuitous torture dungeon sequence and the sight of a bucketful of rats picking a corpse clean to a bleached skeleton in a matter of seconds. That a god-fearing Victorian moralist like Stoker would have even conceived of something like this is unlikely: `Burial of the Rats' is pure William Castle camp from the prison guard who can't recognise the protagonist because he has a hat on (!!) to the ludicrous moment when the Rat Queen plucks a disobedient rodent out of the pack on the floor at her feet and cuts its head off-with a miniature guillotine! Insipid and inane but much more fun than a dozen far more well-made `serious' films, this is a bad movie lovers delight!