Deadly Eyes

Before a zombie apocalypse became de rigueur, eco-horror was king of the box office with animals being the most frequent culprit when it came to destroying the world. Nightwing (bats), Wolfen (wolves), and Phase IV (ants) predicted that super-intelligent or genetically mutated critters were all but a foregone conclusion and mankind’s clock was ticking. Add to that list Deadly Eyes (1982), a Canadian production based loosely on James Herbert’s novel The Rats, but more closely modeled after Joe Dante’s Piranha, with a nest of oversized rodents scurrying through the Toronto subways.

Directed by Robert Clouse (Enter the Dragon) and scripted by Charles Eglee (now a seasoned TV vet with Dexter and Walking Dead his most recent credits), Deadly Eyes is pre-wrapped b-movie junk food from beginning to end. Of course, the most famous story surrounding the production is the creation of the rats themselves: a mix of puppets, animatronics and dachshunds in rat suits.

You might want to back up and read that last bit again. I said, dachshunds in rat suits.

It’s to the production’s credit that their homemade solution is actually the film’s best effect, especially overhead shots of the rodents jumping in for the kill or racing through miniature scale subway tunnels. The quick cuts and realistic tails work surprisingly well. Close-ups of poorly constructed Muppet knock-offs? Eh, not so much. But Deadly Eyes is more of a one-night stand than a long-term relationship anyway, so it only needs a few money shots.

The story shifts awkwardly between several protagonists: Paul Harris (Sam Groom), a divorced schoolteacher who’s fighting off the advances of an underage student (Lisa Langlois) while finding himself attracted to the local health inspector (Sara Botsford). Scatman Crothers, fresh off The Shining, even stops by to meet his doom. All the plots intersect eventually with a go-for-broke third act that has the rats attacking a high-society subway affair and a Bruce Lee marathon at the theater down the street!

Deadly Eyes is a film with zero pretensions. It simply delivers the best giant rat thrills for the budget…which, admittedly, wasn’t very much. But it’s right in Scream Factory’s wheelhouse, adding yet another so-bad-it’s-good catalog title that hasn’t seen the light of day since VHS. The Blu-ray / DVD combo looks pretty spectacular and comes with over an hour of new interviews from Eglee, the actors and the effects team.