Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Oh, Rats!, November 11, 2007
"Mulberry Street" is not so much about rats who turn humans into flesh-eating monsters in New York City. It's much more basic than that: it's all about tension and about how much can be crammed into a single story. The rats are more of an afterthought, really--they may serve as the catalyst for a medical crisis, but when their job is done, they conveniently disappear. That's a good thing, because at a certain point, we don't pay attention to them anymore. What we do pay attention to is how the tension builds. And that's why this movie is so effective; it does nothing but build itself up, and it keeps building even during the end credits. I repeatedly asked myself what would happen next, and that's always the sign of a good horror film, especially one so taut, brooding, and fatalistic.
The best thing is that it tells an understandable story without lingering on extensive character development. The first named billed in the opening credits is Nick Damici, but that doesn't mean he plays the main character. I don't think there is a main character in this film; it takes place in a rundown New York City apartment located on Mulberry Street, and the people who inhabit it live in a kind of community. Damici plays an aging boxer named Clutch, who eagerly awaits a visit from his daughter. Clutch's friend is Coco (Ron Brice), a gay man who probably has stronger feelings for Clutch than he would care to admit. But Clutch seems to show an interest in Kay (Bo Corre), a single mom who gets by as a bartender. Her son, Ross (Tim House), is a detached teenager, showing no interest in school or in life. The only thing he seems to be interested in is photography, and he takes plenty of pictures even within the confines of his room. The building's elderly men--Charlie (Larry Fleischman) and Frank (Larry Medich)--function on dependent levels; one wheels an oxygen tank around while the other seems to be getting confused about things.
The one character who exists outside of the apartment complex is Clutch's daughter, Casey (Kim Blair), a military officer on her way home from serving in Iraq. Her face is covered with scars, and she tires to cover them up by letting her bangs down. She initially doesn't say or do much, but we still get the sense that's she's incredibly insecure about the way she looks, and is probably more insecure about her military status. There's a moment when a train platform custodian thanks her for her service to her country; she says a polite thank you, but doesn't express any pride or show any sense of accomplishment. In a later scene, in which she rides a train, a woman talking on a cell phone sits in front of her. This woman gives subtle yet significant signals, indicating that Casey's scars are making her uncomfortable. Casey picks up on this, and tries to compensate by letting her bangs down once again.
It isn't until the rat crisis that she begins to apply herself. The same can be said for the characters in the apartment complex--a large rat, thought to be dead, bites the building's superintendent. Soon after, he begins to feel funny. Hair grows on top of his ears. His sense of smell becomes inhumanly strong. He develops a taste for raw meat. The tenants don't suspect anything until they start watching the news; apparently, a full-blown epidemic has taken hold of New York City, one so deadly that the American government has decided to quarantine Manhattan. Rats have bitten people all over the city, and it doesn't take long for these people to transform into mutant creatures with a taste for human meat. It quickly becomes a matter of survival, pitting a handful of Mulberry Street residents against an entire apartment full of flesh eaters.
I'm probably making this film sound like a low-tread rehash, but that really isn't the case. This is a story that doesn't depend on a scary idea, but rather on how it shapes itself around a scary idea. Since many of the characters are engulfed in shadow, and since most of the terror is hidden in complete darkness, not much is seen when the creatures attack. A lot of what happens to the victims is left up to the imagination, and that's rarely done in horror movies these days; we have to think about their fates, and thinking is always scarier than actually seeing. There a point at which one creature is trapped in Clutch's closet; when Coco reopens the door he sees that the creature has chewed its way through the ceiling, meaning that it's now loose within the walls of the apartment complex. It doesn't matter where it went or if we even see it again--all that matters is that we no longer see it and that we don't know what will happen next.
The concept of rat/human hybrids terrorizing New York is downright silly, yet the people behind "Mulberry Street" were able to make it seem real. And consider the fact that a hint of satire runs all throughout: a billboard for developer displays the slogan "The Neighborhood is Changing," and a newscaster solemnly reports that help isn't arriving fast enough for the hundreds left alive in Manhattan. The President (whoever that is in this story) has declared a state of emergency, but information is being gathered too slowly to be of any real help. This only adds to the sense of isolation felt by the Mulberry Street tenants, increasing that overwhelming sense of What Now. This is a dark, unnerving story, one that refuses to let the audience relax.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great storytelling!, November 19, 2007
I have to say this film caught me by surprise and is one of my favorite horror films ever made. The genius behind the film is the excellent writing that focuses on the depth of relationships between the characters. As the film starts off, you get a glimpse of the various characters going through another day in their lives. Meanwhile, you catch glimpses on the TVs in the background that something bad is beginning to happen in New York, but life goes on. The spreading epidemic is nothing but background noise.
Needless to say, the situation spirals out of control and hits home as the tenants of the building fight for lives as the city falls apart around them. I almost cried twice, but the end had me bawling (and I was not the only man in the theater who was reduced to tears, but the intense emotional climax of the film).
The writer/star of the film wrote a prior film about the unspoken love between men and that theme returns in this film as a gay tenant struggles with unrequited love. I have rarely seen a gay character handled so sensitively in popular cinema- much less a horror flick. These are very real characters, not a bunch of models, scientists, sheriffs, or other horror cliches. Don't miss this movie!
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rat salad anyone?, February 16, 2008
Holy cow! I'm not one to get all excited by an indie horror movie but this movie would have to be the exception.
The people of NYC are under attack by rats. The government has quarantined Manhattan and all hell's broken loose! Those who've been bitten have mutated into "rat people."
This movie makes you care about the characters which makes it that much harder to see them die. I really liked this flick and highly recommend it.
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