- Actors: Peter Weller, Jennifer Dale, Lawrence Dane, Kenneth Welsh, Louis Del Grande
- Directors: George P. Cosmatos
- Writers: Brian Taggert, Chauncey G. Parker III
- Producers: Claude Héroux, Pierre David
- Format: Closed-captioned, Colour, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
- Language English
- Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
- Region: Region 1 (US and Canada DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 1.85:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: R (Restricted) (US MPAA rating. See details.)
- Studio: Warner Home Video
- DVD Release Date: 5 Aug 2003
- Run Time: 88 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- ASIN: B00009NHBH
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 136,573 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
Product details |
Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
A low-rent horror flick from the early 1980s, Of Unknown Origin completely misses the mark in the scare stakes and instead comes across like a grisly, live-action version of Tom and Jerry. Our inept hero is the ambitious, house-proud executive Bart Hughes (Peter Weller), who is left alone by his wife and son to complete a business proposal only to discover that he is sharing his apartment with a mischievous giant rat. Unable to trap or poison his foe, Hughes quickly descends into nightmare-haunted madness and thus the stage is set for a suspenseless battle of wits that is less cat-and-mouse and more idiot-versus-rat.
Finding an angry rodent swimming in your toilet might be a pretty unpleasant prospect, but cinematically speaking it's far from terrifying. Created using jerky point-of-view shots and creature effects that range from incongruous real-life footage to button-eyed glove puppets, the rat is an unthreatening villain, despite Weller's best efforts to react in abject horror when he finds the corners of his mail nibbled or his dry groceries spoiled. There are some unsuccessful attempts to make Hughes' plight more immediate to the audience by references to real-life rat problems--he visits a library to research his enemy and finds some disturbing photographs of rat-attack victims and subsequently ruins a dinner party with a genuinely unsettling rant about infestation and plagues--but it's difficult to feel sorry for him when he can't even muster the tenacity to track down a professional exterminator. By the time Weller gets caught in one of his own traps, you will probably be rooting for the rat anyway, and might take some pleasure from a ridiculous denouement in which, dressed in full battle-gear, he completely destroys his beloved apartment by clumsily chasing the elusive vermin with a nail-studded baseball bat. Gore Verbinski's genuinely hilarious Mousehunt did it with a lot more charm.
On the DVD: Of Unknown Origin comes to DVD with a basic selection of extras. An entertaining commentary from Peter Weller and the likeable George P Cosmatos III does the film a lot of favours, even if their efforts to talk up its importance as an allegory for man's struggle against nature using comparisons with The Old Man and the Sea, Moby Dick, Alien and Jaws fail to convince. Added to this is the theatrical trailer ("If it doesn't scare you to death, it WILL find another way!"), a choice of languages and scene selection. --Paul Philpott
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Basic plot. Robocop himself peter weller is left alone at home when he finds he has a rat living in the house with him. This rat is a big en and goes out of its way to mess with peters head until he takes the rat on mono a mono. Not as silly as it sounds this is quite a well crafted thriller with the rat starting of slowly in its destruction and becoming more and more brave in its assaults. Great dream scene where the rat attacks his sons birthday. Peter is really good as the man getting more an more irate and its great at the end when he suits up in sports gear and completely wrecks his house to fight the rat.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
28 reviews
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Excellent must see underated horror film
14 Sep 2000
This movie is one of the most underated horror films that I have ever seen. Beautiful use of the long take and voyeuristic photography. It's very "Roman Polanski esque". Weller is perfect as the upscale New Yorker who becomes obsessed with a rodent invading his beautiful apartment. If you ever lived in a large city, this movie is a must see.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Quirky Vintage Weller
8 May 2001
An urban "Moby Dick"! Suspenseful yet humorous with some purposely overblown rat scenes. (ONE rat, not "hordes.") The film is not a scary rat flick, (though it has some fright moments)--it's a psychological thriller about a man being drawn into obsession.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Robocop vs. Huge Rat, Round 1 Fight!!!.
11 Dec 2007
Format:DVD
Peter Weller (Robocop) turns his home into a battleground in this fun little b-movie horror film. The film starts of with Peter Weller's character who has a beautiful wife and a son who live in a classy New York apartment as hes ready to go to work, soon both his wife and son leave to visit some relatives during the weekend so he will have some time to get some office work done, unfortunately for him there seems to be a little problem. There seems to be a huge rodent roaming around the apartment and it has really become a nuisance of course he calls the exterminator but that doesn't help infact it seems like things are getting much worse as this disgusting rodent seems to outsmart its opponent and Peter's character can't take it anymore so he has to go to extreme measures in order to get rid of this problem and he becomes totally obsessed it seems to have taken over his life and sanity. Of Unknown Origin was a pretty good horror film even though there were some corny parts I still liked it its sort of like a guilty pleasure movie so I watch it when theres nothing else on T.V..
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