Of Unknown Origin

Of Unknown Origin (1983)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: George P. Cosmatos

Starring: Peter Weller, Jennifer Dale, Lawrence Dane, Louis Del Grande, Shannon Tweed

From: Warner Bros.

Somehow I forgot to log this film here until now. Whoops. I can say that Thursday night I saw Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D on the big screen (which was awesome) and tonight I rewatched Suspiria; I still think it's style over substance and despite such a concept not always being my thing, this is the exception and it is quite enjoyable and of course still looks and sounds great; I imagine the new limited edition Blu from Synapse will be nirvana for the movie's biggest fans. Anyhow, here is me talking about this Canuxploitation horror film:

This is another movie I've known of for a long while and I've been thinking about watching for a long while but I got distracted with other films instead... finally, last night I decided to stop procrastinating and I can say this is a good film, darkly humorous but still an effective look at how someone can become obsessed to the point of losing his mind.

The plot is rather simple: Peter Weller is what would be called now a “yuppie”; he lives in New York City (although this was actually filmed in Montreal), has a wife-played by Shannon Tweed!-and young son. The wife and son hang out with her dad in Vermont, so Weller is all alone. As he needs to work on an important deal at his office that will certainly give him a promotion, it's a big problem when a giant rat suddenly invades his just-renovated townhouse. You can see where this is going... his home gets wrecked as he unsuccessfully deals with this critter and the whole ordeal causes him to lose his mind. The metaphors to “the rat race” and Moby Dick are rather obvious, and this is incredibly unsubtle in presenting those metaphors.

Much of the film is either Weller alone, him interacting with his fellow employees, or talking to two different people familiar with pest-killing. The film itself I would not say it's great but he does elevate the material. I've seen some photos of how large rats can get so the size of this thing isn't too improbable... you do see the creature do some improbable things, but I still rolled with the punches and went along with what would be a nightmare scenario for most of us, and this was a nightmare for the lead character. It is easy to feel bad for this poor schlub as he suffers his mental breakdown and plus, he downs J&B like he's in a poliziotteschi.

If a lesser actor would have been the lead, this movie definitely suffers. That is even with the cast having some familiar character actors, at least if you have seen enough old films. As is, the movie's an entertaining time.