Of Unknown Origin (1983)

Directed by George P. Cosmatos. Starring Peter Weller, Jennifer Dale, Louis Del Grande, Shannon Tweed, Lawrence Dane, Jimmy Tapp, Kenneth Welsh. [R]

While his wife and child are out of town, investment banker Weller tears apart his personally-renovated NYC brownstone trying to exterminate an invasive, increasingly-destructive rat. Although it’s hard to get worked up about a toothy rodent (it’s not even that big of a pest), the moviehas some fun—while avoiding pretentiousness—in building up the legendary menace that is the rat, noted as a creature “of unknown origin”, and described in a magazine article as the “lapdog of the devil”. A few amusing POV shots and a good showing from Weller as he descends into desperation and madness, but repetition and an overuse of nightmare “scares” hold it back from being anything more than a decent off-kilter thriller. It’s appropriate that future erotic B-movie queen Shannon Tweed should make her entrance into feature films by being photographed in the shower. Maury Chaykin has a small role.

59/100