Posts Tagged ‘Nuclear War’


Rats: Night of Terror

February 18th, 2011 | article by | No Comments »
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a.k.a. Rats: Notte di Terrore
Year: 1983   Company: Beatrice Film / Imp. Ex. Ci. Nice   Runtime: 96′
Director: Bruno Mattei   Writers: Bruno Mattei, Claudio Fragasso, Herve Piccini
Cinematography: Franco Delli Colli   Music: Luigi Ceccarelli   Cast: Ottavio Dell’Acqua, Geretta Geretta,
Massimo Vanni, Gianni Franco, Ann-Gisel Glass, Jean-Christophe Bretigniere, Fausto Lombardi, Henry Luciani
Available on DVD from Blue Underground. Product link: Amazon.com

A bunch of post-apocalyptic assholes with names like Duke and Taurus stumble into a secret research station decades after the third world war has brought an end to civilization.  Finding no people but plenty of supplies, our intrepid survivors decide to stay the night, only to find themselves trapped by an ever-growing horde of super-intelligent flesh-hungry rats.

This is a monumentally stupid film about monumentally stupid people who do monumentally stupid things and, as a result, die monumentally stupid deaths at the teeny-tiny teeth and claws of superhuman uber-rats.  So monumentally stupid is this film and the events that transpire within it that I found myself to have been quite liberally drooling on myself by the time the end credits rolled (no joke).  Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, but the experience has left me thinking that a review bib might not be so bad an investment.

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The Last War (Sekai Daisenso) 1961

August 17th, 2010 | article by | 1 Comment »
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I picked up this beauty just over a year ago and, finding myself with a bit of free time this morning, decided to scan it for your amusement.

This small Thai theatrical poster (it measures just 15 1/2 by 21 inches) for Toho’s The Last War dates back to 1962 and is a nice variation on the art produced by the studio for the film’s domestic release, showing an ominous red-saturated mushroom cloud looming over decimated Tokyo.  The artwork features Akira Takarada, Yuriko Hoshi, Nobuko Otawa and even the American actor who first pushes the button quite prominently, while top-billed Frankie Sakai is suspiciously absent.

Typical of Thai posters from this time period, the colors are bold and vibrant even if fine detail is lacking (as in the rather crude renditions of the Eiji Tsuburaya effects set pieces featured at the bottom).  The title conveniently appears in Thai, Japanese and English, lest anyone be confused as to what film they’re going to see.

The Last War was marketed broadly and was picked up for most international markets and was picked up by Brenco Pictures (along with Gorath and The Human Vapor) for theatrical release in the United States.  With the failure of the other two properties and the folding of Brenco itself The Last War never made it to US cinemas, and its considerably abbreviated English language edit remains one of the harder to find of Toho effects imports.