Willard

Director: Glen Morgan
Cast: Crispin Glover, R. Lee Ermey, Laura Harring, Jackie Burroughs
Genre: Drama/Horror/Sci-fi 2003
Running time: 100 mins.
Rating:★★★

Loosely based on the novel Ratman's Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert and a remake of the 1971 film Willard. It was not billed as a remake by the producers, but as a re-working of the themes from the original, with a stronger focus on suspense. For years, William Stiles (Crispin Glover) has been trapped in a dead end job with no friends and no future. Willard's life seems hopeless until he makes an eerie discovery: he shares a powerful bond with the rats that dwell in his basement. Now a guy who has been trampled in the rat race his whole life is suddenly ready to tear up the competition beginning with his boss (R. Lee Ermey). 

The introduction and main body of the film, is either an homage or a rip off to the animation, mood, cinematography, and music that was made famous by directors: Stanley Kubrick (A Clockwork Orange and The Shining), Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho and Birds), Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Batman, Beetlejuice) and the brilliant team of Peter Lord and Nick Park (Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit). Yet to see the "original" version with Bruce Davidson, it's clever to see a painting of him on the mantel indicating that he is the late father of the "newer" version's Willard, played by Crispin Glover. For this social-misfit to be trapped in his parents house and in a company built by his late father, it is almost understandable that he would retain his child-like antics and befriend the rats in his basement. Especially when he has to deal with an asshole and power-hungry boss, who takes pleasure in torturing him. I would want to take revenge too, in an ideal and consequence-free world. Eerie for sure, but right up my alley! What makes it perticularly eerie is, not only Glover's amazing performance, but also the feeling that this film is intended for children. Making the events that follows so terrifying making your skin crawl. However, when you name two of your rats, Socrates and Ben, having favoring one over the other, you realize there is no world without consequence! And you get an Animal Farm revolt!

The scene after Willard comes back from his mother's funeral and one of his co-workers gives him a cat to help with the grief, terrifies me to no end as a cat-owner. The partly fictitious and partly truthful actions that thousands of rats could do is chilling. It is shortly after this that Willard realizes what he must do and therefore gain the confidence he needs. He also learns that all good things must come to an end and alter the rat race that had once controlled his life! But is it enough to save him?