DEADLY EYES (1982): Dachshunds Double as Giant Killer Rats, All Is Right With World
Deadly Eyes hits Blu-ray on July 15th from Scream Factory
Hide ya kids, hide ya wifes… because steroid-mutated giant rats are coming in the house to feast on their flesh. You may think they look comical (being that the pack is played by a small army of dachshunds in costumes)… but they will eat your baby. I know this because the first thing the rats do in director Robert Clouse’s Deadly Eyes is EAT A BABY!
Well, okay, not the very first thing. In fact, we kick off in a classroom with a thematically appropriate lecture about rats being given to a group of high school aged kids on a field trip. Their teacher, Paul Harris (Sam Groom), is the lead of the film and the inappropriate object of affection for teen bombshell Trudy (Lisa Langlois), whose friends and their storylines all seem to exist solely to expand the potential body count. Next we cut to a shipping dock where an environmental agent (Sara Botsford as Kelly Leonard) is consigning a large corn shipment to destruction after finding it riddled with steroids and other contaminants. As one would naturally assume, Scatman Crothers is with her, and when he sets a cat loose in the shipment, we get our first glimpse of those titular eyes. THEN, after all that set up, we get to the part where the rats eat a baby, and you’ll need to scoop your jaw up off the floor. Honestly, the movie really didn’t have its teeth in me (I don’t care if you won’t forgive me for that one) until that “line in the sand” moment. Once you have giant rats eat a baby in your movie… there is no returning to innocence. And weirdly… there’s also no return to that scene or the characters in it. Baby eaten? Welp, time to surge ahead!
That might lead one to believe that the script for Deadly Eyes is pretty bad. But honestly, I actually had to step back at one point and remind myself I was watching a giant killer rat movie because I got surprisingly invested in the very naturally developing romantic relationship between Paul and Kelly, which is kind of weird. As it turns out, the writer and co-producer of the film is none other than Charles Eglee, who has gone on to such heights as to be a writer on Dexter and The Walking Dead. So I guess even back then he was able to generate a little dimensionality for his soon-to-be-rat-food characters!
Deadly Eyes provided a special kind of filmgoing joy; a joy in which various parts of a whole came together and made an amazing viewing experience out of a largely terrible film. Based on a novel called The Rats by author James Herbert, it seems that no one involved in the production of the film ever actually read the book. Multiple interviewees say as much in the bonus materials on the disc, most notably Eglee. As I mentioned earlier, before the baby munching, I was getting a little concerned that this movie was just going to be outright awful. You can’t just put ominous music over humorously terrible rat puppets and call a film “horror” after all. And while Deadly Eyes really doesn’t ever get scary, it does go for the jugular and has a grand sense of humor throughout. The rat kills get bloodier and bloodier, and much like Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Godzilla… it just kind of seems like wherever our cast of characters go, a rat pack is sure to follow. We know that if small children aren’t safe, Scatman Crothers (nor anyone else) for damn sure isn’t either. And one has to give a lot of credit to veteran director Robert Clouse (Enter The Dragon, The Ultimate Warrior) for this wonderful tone which embraces the inherent silliness of the entire endeavor (reminder: dachshunds in rat costumes) while also delivering the blood, guts, and action to keep us rooted in the realm of horror. And about those dachshunds… that is just some of the funniest crap you’re ever going to see. Honestly, the first time I saw a pack of giant rats swarming some innocent elderly man (another thread never once returned to and clearly present just to up the body count), I had to rewind the shot and try to figure out what I was seeing and how the filmmakers pulled this off. For every rat pack shot after that… I literally laughed and laughed, out loud, whilst totally alone in my living room. I didn’t know they were dogs until seeing the bonus features, but I knew some little critters with giant floppy fake rat tails were scurrying around, and I found it primally hilarious. Now, on the one hand, you can’t imagine this was the affect the special effects artists were hoping to have on the audience. But on the other hand, my unbridled enjoyment of it all cannot be ignored.
Deadly Eyes is laugh out loud hilarious, bizarrely, almost uncomfortably well-written in parts, and delivers on the promise of every tag line used to market it. Fans of B-horror will instantly recognize it as a Piranha knock off that is potentially leagues more entertaining than Piranha. I can’t really claim that Deadly Eyes is a good movie. The rats are just so silly that they work in unintended ways to elevate the film to something more… something eternal. I’ll never forget the hordes of rat-clad dachshunds, and how many horror films come along that deserve to be called “unforgettable”?
THE PACKAGE
Deadly Eyes is a 1982 film, so it comes from an era so aesthetically pleasing to me that I’m inclined to like everything I see. The look of the film, the cars and costumes, even the music. And yet, I’m not entirely sure this is a film perfectly suited for Blu-ray. Those practical, puppet effects (whenever the rats are in close up, they aren’t played by dachshunds) are done zero favors by high definition. But besides a few area of scratching from the original print, I found the transfer of the film to be great. And since this Blu-ray release marks my discovery of this film, rather than bringing me some long lost gem from my past, I also have to say that I got a ton of enjoyment out of the bonus features. Like I said, it was only through the newly produced content on this disc that I learned about the dachshunds. The bonus features are broken down into a 30 minute retrospective piece that features interviews Charles Eglee, Art Director Ninkey Dalton (who’s been married to Eglee since they met on Deadly Eyes), and effects artist Alec Gillis. then there are distinct interviews with each of the following talent from the film: Lisa Langlois (the aforementioned bombshell Trudy), Lesleh Donaldson (who plays Trudy’s best friend and who had her own horror film career with such films as Curtains and Happy Birthday To Me), and Joseph Kelly (who plays Trudy’s dumb jock boyfriend). I found the amount of bonus content to be a great offering. There was just enough information to remain enjoyable without delving into overkill territory.
“Tonight, they will rise from the darkness beneath the cities… to feed!”
And I’m Out.