Weird and creepy movies are made for one primary reason: to scare the audience with shock value, usually culminating in some sort of bizarre and ultimately laughable monster chasing the main character.
\Willard,"" on the other hand, is weird and creepy for its own sake. The movie plods along torturously at a funeral's pace, through the first hour or so, showing the pathetic protagonist, Willard, slowly going insane in a depressing world and lifestyle he has come to despise desperately.
Throughout the first hour Crispin Glover performs admirably as a man who is controlled by his domineering and bedridden mother at home and by his power-hungry and corrupt boss at work, played with enormous vigor by R. Lee Emery. Looking for any amount of control, Willard turns to exterminating the rats that have overrun his basement. Upon catching one in particular,
Willard begins a strange bond with the dozens of rodents. The bond eventually develops into full-out affection and Willard organizes the rat pack into a crack team of quadrapedal demolition men that act out vengeance-minded schemes that Willard does not have the nerve to do on his own. The schemes start out as juvenile moments of aggression but Willard slowly loses control over the rats as they become increasingly violent and volatile.
Perhaps, the funniest moment of the movie is the scene where an unfortunate cat finds its way into Willard's home and the rats devour the feline to the tune of easy listening muzak. The touches of such dark humor keep the audience captivated.
However, the movie contains more moments of simple violence than dark humor. And just as the film should be gaining more momentum, it loses most of it. Willard loses his mind in the end and the viewer is left to wonder whether anyone with any degree of social conditioning whatsoever is really as pathetic as Glover's character.
The movie is certainly not a complete wash because many fine actors and actresses give fine perfomances. Not to be lost is the acting of Laura Elena Harring, known mostly for her dual role in ""Mulholland Drive."" Harring here shows why she is one of the best and most under-utilized actresses in Hollywood.
