The Daily Dig: Deadly Eyes (1982)

The biggest talking point is the canine actors who brought the mutant rats “to life” — a fact which doesn’t bode well for quality.

Steroid-contaminated feed spawns massive, mutant rats in the subways of New York. Let’s dig into 1982’s DEADLY EYES, directed by Robert Clouse!

As I See It

Based on a novel by James Herbert and produced by Paragon Films (who produced a lot of Jackie Chan films) and Golden Harvest (who produced the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films as well as the Ip-Man franchise, which is brilliant), we don’t get the expert level of puppetry and costuming that Golden Harvest would cast upon the late eighties.

Instead, we get a bunch of wiener dogs wearing rat-like costumes and running around for off-screen hunks of meat and blood to make it look like they were running for on-screen hunks of meat and blood.

They use big cat noises for the rats, which is confusing, and honestly, they seem like a very avoidable danger.

They don’t come out of the sewer without human intervention. Hell, they don’t exist without human intervention. It’s silly and doesn’t capture the fearful natural horror that a bunch of really cleverly shot seventies films did.

A sequel seemed to be promised, with the ending showing the rats taking a subway ride and having a snack. The bloodiest horror scene of the whole film. Roll credits.

Famous Faces

Lisa Langlois (Trudy) and Lesleh Donaldson (Martha) were both in Happy Birthday to Me, one of my favorite films of the slasher boom.

Scatman Crothers (George) was a multi-talented star who you’ll most certainly recognize as Dick Hallorann from Stanley Kurbick’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Shining.

Of Gratuitous Nature

In a film that has a fireside sex scene with close-up nipple licking and a scene where one of the mutant rats steals a child from a high chair and eats it (off-screen), I might have to go with subjecting the horde of dachshunds to the rigors of costumed performing.

Heartthrob

I was on a bit of a marathon with this being the third film of the day, so a familiar face (Lisa Langlois appeared in Transformations, which will be covered this week as well) felt right at home with the seduction of her professor.

Ripe for a Remake

I am a sucker for natural horror films, but this one feels removed from that subgenre. There have been other, better, killer rat films.

Spawns

A 2002 remake was produced and titled The Rats and starred Twin Peaks Shelly Johnson (Mädchen Amick).

Where to Watch

Shout Factory released a Blu-Ray in 2014, which can be had on the secondary market.