If you like rats, then this is a movie for you. Well, unless you'd rather watch Willard, original or remake, or Graveyard Shift, the one with Brad Dourif. But still, Of Unknown Origin does have a nasty rat in it. It's man versus rat in a battle of wits...and teeth. Cue horror-movie music.
Of Unknown Origin stars Peter Weller as Bart, a successful businessman who's under a lot of strain at the office. With the wife and kid out of town, he can meander around his renovated-by-hand townhouse at the end of the day and just unwind. That is, until he hears noises coming from behind the walls.
Bart buys traps. They don't work. He buys bigger traps, then poison. Nothing doing. We get occasional glimpses of the rat. The rat chews through various wires, eventually shutting down all electricity. Meanwhile, Bart is desperately trying to finish a project at work on very short notice. Life's not going well.
Weller was sort of a poor man's version of James Woods: sometimes unhinged, sometimes too calm. That dichotomy is on display here. Weller, who would later play Robocop, is pretty good here, given the dopey and unbelievable material, and he shouldn't be faulted for the film's many shortcomings. Shannon Tweed also appears, briefly, as Bart's wife. It was Tweed's first movie, and it's shame she's not in it more.
There's a lot of destruction and mayhem in Of Unknown Origin, more than you'd think a man-versus-rodent battle might entail. The director is one George Cosmatos, who would later direct both First Blood and Tombstone, so this just stands to reason. This is a harmless, vacant-mind movie.
Of Unknown Origin stars Peter Weller as Bart, a successful businessman who's under a lot of strain at the office. With the wife and kid out of town, he can meander around his renovated-by-hand townhouse at the end of the day and just unwind. That is, until he hears noises coming from behind the walls.
Bart buys traps. They don't work. He buys bigger traps, then poison. Nothing doing. We get occasional glimpses of the rat. The rat chews through various wires, eventually shutting down all electricity. Meanwhile, Bart is desperately trying to finish a project at work on very short notice. Life's not going well.
Weller was sort of a poor man's version of James Woods: sometimes unhinged, sometimes too calm. That dichotomy is on display here. Weller, who would later play Robocop, is pretty good here, given the dopey and unbelievable material, and he shouldn't be faulted for the film's many shortcomings. Shannon Tweed also appears, briefly, as Bart's wife. It was Tweed's first movie, and it's shame she's not in it more.
There's a lot of destruction and mayhem in Of Unknown Origin, more than you'd think a man-versus-rodent battle might entail. The director is one George Cosmatos, who would later direct both First Blood and Tombstone, so this just stands to reason. This is a harmless, vacant-mind movie.