Willard Collection
Ben
Where 'WILLARD' ended... Ben begins. And this time, he's not alone!
A lonely boy becomes good friends with Ben, a rat. This rat is also the leader of a pack of vicious killer rats, killing lots of people.
- Original title
- Ben
- Language
- EN
- Country
- US
- Budget
- —
- Revenue
- —
CinemaSerf
Mar 22, 2025 · via TMDB
I suppose if you are going to make an horror movie, then it’s hard to beat rats as the culprits. The young, imaginative, “Danny” (Lee Montgomery) is a bit of a gentle loner who makes friends with a rat he names “Ben”. He tells his sister all about his new friend, but “Eve” (Meredith Baxter) just assumes he is making him up. Then some odd things start to happen in their neighbourhood, and rumours start to abound that there is a swarm of rats marauding around attacking people. When a grocery store is trashed by these vandalising critters, the police step in and “Kirkland” (Joseph Campanella) has to try and make sense of events that simply don’t add up. The more he looks for the beasts the less he finds, and when one of the lads that bullies “Lee” is reputedly attacked, even that doesn’t shed any light on things. Despite repeated and exhaustive searches of the subterranean pipes, sewers and drains, there is nothing! How are the authorities going to get to the bottom of things? The acting and the dialogue are all pretty mundane, true, but the sights of rats clambering and crawling everywhere, and the idea that there could be one more intelligent co-ordinating their behaviour is a genuinely quite spooky one. Like an army of ants only bigger, hairier, and with bigger teeth! It rather runs out of steam towards the end, but for a while the busy photography and the tension from the score create quite an unsettling atmosphere that might make you check under the bed and lock the windows before you go to sleep at night. The Michael Jackson title song got an Oscar nomination, it was made by Bing Crosby Productions and it’s not as bad as I’d initially feared.
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
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Lee Montgomery
Danny
Joseph Campanella
Cliff Kirtland
Arthur O'Connell
Bill Hatfield
Rosemary Murphy
Beth Garrison
Meredith Baxter
Eve Garrison
Kaz Garas
Joe Greer
Paul Carr
Kelly
Richard Van Vleet
Reade
Kenneth Tobey
Engineer
James Luisi
Ed
Lee Paul
Careu
Norman Alden
Policeman
Arlen Stuart
Mrs. Gray
Bob Harks
Observer on Sidewalk (uncredited)
Bern Hoffman
Truck Driver (uncredited)
Kenner G. Kemp
Onlooker (uncredited)
Leoda Richards
Onlooker (uncredited)
Hunter von Leer
Police officer with camera (uncredited)
Bob Minor
Stunts
Craig R. Baxley
Stunts
Phil Karlson
Director
Bing Crosby
Executive Producer
Malcolm McNab
Musician
Walter Scharf
Original Music Composer
Michael Jackson
Songs
Pulp Fiction
Jaws
The Butterfly Effect
Dawn of the Dead
Dirty Harry
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Experiment
Falling Down
Jacob's Ladder
The Bourne Supremacy
In the Mouth of Madness
Irreversible
The Matrix Reloaded
Dawn of the Dead
Valkyrie
Breakdown
Death Proof
Mission: Impossible III
The Firm
Lethal Weapon 3
We Own the Night
Black Phone 2
Silent Hill
Lethal Weapon 4
From the Ashes
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Hard Target
2 Fast 2 Furious
Next Door
Executive Decision
Meg 2: The Trench
Saw IV
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Jaws 2
El calabozo
Color of Night
Of Unknown Origin
The Whole Ten Yards
The Grudge 2
Solo mía
Killer Tomatoes Eat France!
Bloodsport III
The Grudge 3
Shakma
VHS Massacre: Cult Films and the Decline of Physical Media
Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes
Devil Times Five
The Hollow
Broken Mile
Killer Tomatoes Strike Back!
Massacre on Aisle 12
Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite
Howling V: The Rebirth
Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare
Cam2Cam
Jaws: The Revenge
Laser Mission
Dark Dungeons
Children of a Darker Dawn
Drowning in Thought
Furious 7
Killer Bean Forever
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Deep Water
Foreign Correspondent
The Mechanic
Good Boy
No Name on the Bullet
The Jack in the Box Rises
The Night Visitor
16 Blocks
The Passenger
Race with the Devil
Night Watch
The Possessed
Chief of Station
The Mean Season
Black Widow
The Jester
Eradication
Willard
The 355
Gleaming the Cube
The Fast and the Fierce
Fear Is the Key
The Shed
The Hand
The Unhealer
The Killer Elite
Superhost
Jun 23, 1972
Aug 9, 1990
Paramount Pictures / Prism Entertainment #51036 [VHS] 95 minutes
