Rats everywhere! Deadly Eyes is all about giant steroid rats rampaging through the sewers of Toronto, feasting on people and the occasional baby. It’s a low-budget, gritty looking film, that has a lot in common with a couple films that came before it, like Alligator and Piranha. Even with a low budget of about $900,000, Deadly Eyes, also known as Night Eyes as seen on Scream Factory’s film source, is a lot of fun, with some really gnarly kill scenes and a surprisingly effective use of having dogs dressed as rats. Read on to see what the movie is like and whether the Blu-ray is worth it….
PRODUCT INFORMATION
RUN-TIME: 87 min
ASPECT RATIO: 1.78:1
RESOLUTION: 1080p
AUDIO: DTS-HD MA 2.0
LANGUAGE: English
SUBTITLES: English
REGION: A
RATING: R
PRODUCTION DATE: 1982
PLOT SUMMARY
Meet mankind’s deadliest enemy!
Each year they plunder one fifth of our food, spread our deadliest diseases and destroy billions of dollars worth of homes and property.
Grain contaminated with steroids produce large black rats that begin feeding on the citizens of Toronto. A college basketball coach (Sam Groom, The Baby Maker) teams up with a local health inspector (Sara Botsford, The Fog 2005) to uncover the source of the mysterious giant rats. When they discover that the rats are living in the subway, they try to prevent a new subway line from opening before all hell breaks loose underground. This is man’s last desperate, bloody battle to preserve the existence of the human race!
Based on the novel The Rats by James Herbert with a screenplay by Charles Eglee (Dexter, The Walking Dead), this nail-biting thriller is directed by Robert Clouse (Enter The Dragon) and co-stars Scatman Crothers (The Shining), Lisa Langlois (The Nest) and Lesleh Donaldson (Happy Birthday To Me, Curtains).
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| Photo courtesy of Scream Factory Facebook Page |
MOVIE
After burning a contaminated pile of grain, the many pumped up rats have nowhere to go, but into the city to find a new source of food, the source being human! After a few late night snacks on some people and even a baby (I can’t believe they did it!), a suave teacher and a health inspector race to destroy the nest of Dachshund sized rats.
It might be a low budget Canadian effort, but Deadly Eyes ranks up high on the list of giant killer rodent movies. It’s gritty, with an awesome early 80s look, some blood, gore and a side plot involving a student who is in love with her teacher, which has nothing to do with the plot, but we do see her in her underwear for a few seconds. So yay?
The acting is above par for such an affair, with Sara Botsford playing the health inspector Kelly Leonard, Sam Groom playing the dead sexy(?) teacher and of course, you can’t forget Scatman Crothers basically just being high as a kite. With this type of movie, you wouldn’t expect the acting to be any good, but you know what, it’s actually pretty damn surprising how serious everyone takes their role and it really shows through in the final product. I mean come on, how can you not laugh when you see a bunch of dogs dressed as rats running at you, to give you lots of doggy kisses, oops I mean rat bites, yet everyone puts in a damn fine performance.
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| Photo courtesy of Scream Factory Facebook Page |
BLU-RAY
Honestly, Scream Factory has gone above and beyond in their efforts with this release. They have a solid 24 minute making of video and a bunch of interviews with stars Lisa Langlois, Lesleh Donaldson, Joseph Kelly and Special Effects Artist Allan Apone, which all range from 13 minutes to 18 minutes. Rounding all that out is a TV spot. The movie itself looks great, with some lovely grain intact and no compression issues that I could notice. The audio was a little strong sounding at first, but it evened itself out as the movie went on. Also included is a DVD copy of the film.
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| Photo courtesy of Scream Factory Facebook Page |
BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES
- Deadly Eyes: Dogs in Rats’ Clothing – Interviews with Writer Charles Eglee, Art Director Ninkey Dalton and Special Effects Artist Alec Gillis
- Interview with Actress Lisa Langlois
- Interview with Actress Lesleh Donaldson
- Interview with Actor Joseph Kelly
- Interview with Special Effects Artist Allan Apone
- TV Spot
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| Photo courtesy of Scream Factory Facebook Page |
Verdict
I had a blast with this rat chomping film and Scream Factory gives us a wonderful Blu-ray to feast on. If you’re in the mood for low budget 80s rodent horror, you can’t go wrong with Deadly Eyes.
Rating
