An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at Netflix’s Graveyard Rats. The second mini-feature of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities
A graverobber attempts his latest theft but finds it foiled by hundreds of rats leading him into a set of tunnels with even more weird shit.
Is Cabinet of Curiosities Graveyard Rats Scary?
It’s more gross than scary but that’s mainly because I find rats gross. If you like rats and are fond of them you might not find that part scary at all. In the end you won’t find Graveyard Rats scary unless you’re planning to spend the night in a coffin with some rats.
All of our Cabinet of Curiosities Explanations/Reviews:
Ep. 1 – The Lot Explained
Ep. 2 – Graveyard Rats Explained
Ep. 3 – The Autopsy Explained
Ep. 4 – The Outside Explained
Ep. 5 – Pickman’s Model Explained
Ep. 6 – Dreams in The Witch House Explained
Ep. 7 – The Viewing Explained
Ep. 8 – The Murmuring Explained
Plot Synopsis:
The episode opens with two grave robbers digging up a corpse and taking several items from it. As they exit the grave, the cemetery’s owner, Masson (played by David Hewlett) stops them and pulls out a gun. He demands the items returned and tells them to leave.
Masson jumps down into the grave and proceeds to pull a gold filling from the body’s mouth. So he’s robbing it as well. Unfortunately for Masson, he drops the filling and a rat grabs it as it runs off.
Later at the docks, we find out Masson owes someone money and has been stealing from graves in an attempt to pay them back. Will all these episodes have someone who owes someone else money? The issue is the rats have been burrowing into the coffins and stealing bodies, like the ENTIRE body. Masson explains this to his debt collector but he hardly believes him, also Masson talks too much.
The debtor gives him one week to get the money or else they’ll kill him. The following day, Masson goes to the coroner’s office and meets with Dooley, the coroner’s assistant (played by Julian Richings). Apparently, they have an agreement where Dooley lets Masson steal gold fillings and Dooley gets a cut. Will all these episodes have two characters cutting a deal that allows the other to sell stuff?
Dooley lets him check some bodies but doesn’t want him to check a body behind the curtain. Masson checks anyway and sees the man has multiple gold teeth. Dooley prevents him from taking the teeth as the man is a wealthy shipping merchant and it would be too suspicious.
The two hide as they hear the coroner enter with the shipping merchant’s family. Masson overhears them talking about burying the merchant with some rare antiques and he decides to wait until after he’s buried the following day to rob him.
That night while in bed, Masson notices some dust fall from his ceiling and pulls on a string that is poking out. Turns out it’s not a string and it’s actually a rat. The ceiling breaks apart as more rats fall onto Masson.
Luckily it was just a dream or a hallucination, who knows. The following night, Masson digs up the grave but hears rats already inside the coffin. Rushing to open it, he sees the rats drag the body into a hole and he crawls after it.
Through the hole, there are a network of small tight tunnels and Masson continues following the sounds of rats in an attempt to reach the body.
Continuing through, Masson is attacked by a swarm of rats and he resorts to pulling out a gun. I don’t know how many bullets he has, or how good his aim is to shoot small moving targets but, he has no problem accidentally shooting his own foot.
He finally shoots one rat and laughs maniacally as the rest of the rats flee. The laughter subsides as he hears something pretty large growl nearby. Looking down a tunnel, he sees a big fucking rat, also it moves really fucking fast.
Masson manages to shoot it but that only angers it as it slashes at his arm. Masson crawls really fucking fast down some tunnels eventually falling through a hole and landing on a bunch of skeletons.
Although he cries out in fear, he becomes overjoyed when he realizes these are the bodies the rats have been stealing, and they’re surrounded with gold and antiques. Grabbing a sword and some jewelry, Masson looks around finding a strange statue and a body that’s totally a zombie.
Masson decides to go for the gold and jewel-encrusted necklace around the not-zombie because he’s a greedy idiot. After pulling it off, the not-zombie becomes a zombie and lunges at Masson, we also see that it’s missing its legs.
Masson gets his ear bit but fights off the zombie and climbs up a tunnel to relative safety. But that’s a distant relative since at one end of the tunnel the large momma rat appears and at the other end, the zombie starts crawling toward him.
Masson spots a large boulder in the ceiling of the tunnel and tries to get it to come crashing down but it won’t budge. Momma rat lunges at Masson and he reaches for a root to jam in its mouth. Removing it causing the boulder to come crashing down on the rat killing it. It also causes some more rocks to fall preventing the zombie from reaching him.
Looking up at the hole the boulder caused, Masson sees light meaning it’s his way out.
Masson struggles to climb up and reaches the light but he discovers it was actually caused by the reflection of his light hitting a steel plaque in a coffin. Masson is essentially buried alive. To fuck his day up even further, the rats appear for some revenge and they start biting at him as he panics.
Sometime later the grave robbers from the beginning of the episode dig up the grave and find Masson dead. They get a little surprise when a rat crawls out of his mouth. The episode ends as hundreds of rat surround and Masson and pour out of his mouth.
Review:
Graveyard Rats is pretty good. I personally found Masson annoying with his speeches and inability to shut up. Luckily he doesn’t talk much in the story since it’s a one man show after the first 20 minutes. I also hate rats so this was truly terrifying for me.
While I wasn’t a fan of the dialogue the story was alright, though some plot points came out of nowhere like the zombie guy. The big rat I expected since there were holes too large for small rats but random devil/demon statue and zombie guy was weird but not unwelcomed.
Pretty sure the entire episode used minimal CGI and a lot of practical effects which works most of the time. The only time it didn’t work was when the large rat was seen running through the holes, it was almost comical.
Overall I recommend giving Graveyard Rats a watch even if you find the main character annoying since he’ll stop talking pretty quick. It’s also another pretty short episode, about 42ish minutes but unlike Lot 36, this doesn’t seem to drag in a few scenes.
Cast IMDB
Stuff to Ignore
Rotten Tomatoes – No Score
Metacritic – No Score