Rats!

Screened on Blu-ray from Yellow Veil Pictures

I was hoping to connect with this movie, but I think turning into an old geezer is preventing that from happening. I took a chance on this, and while not disappointed really, I just wasn't feeling it.

The chance looked worth taking. Visually, in the trailer, there were elements I found quite attractive, and the vibes it was giving off turned out to be true. To me, the best description of this would be John Waters by way of Larry Clark, by way of Friday, by way of both Harmony Korine and Gregg Araki. And truly, if that was their goal, I think they pulled it off. But where I am currently, this also felt like young kids being subversive just for the sake of it. I'm definitely a fan of stoner, hang-out type movies devoid of narrative structure, but being crude, or obnoxious, is not how I prefer to hang out. Soft raunch, sure. I'm literally revisiting the 1992 SOV movie The Bikini Carwash Company as I write this (written by Buck Flower from Back to the Future - holy cow how did I not know this??), but Rats! just didn't cut it with me.

It's definitely competently made, and its great to see the talent that can make the independent film scene thrive, and no doubt there is an audience for this. Speaking for myself though, it misses the age range by a few decades.