Of Unknown Origin
by George P. Cosmatos
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Jennifer Dale, Kenneth Welsh, Lawrence Dane, Louis Del Grande, Peter WellerDirector: George P. Cosmatos
Cinematographer: René Verzier
Editor: Hubert C. de la Bouillerie
Editor: Roberto Silvi
Producer: Claude Héroux
Producer: Pierre David
Writer: Brian Taggert
Writer: Chauncey G. Parker III
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-08-05
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Of Unknown Origin
Movie Review: awesome movie
Summary: 5 Stars
When I was little I had a fear of rats and this movie made it even worse.It terrified me.I still watched it over and over though.Many years later I finally saw it again and it still scared me though I found out is wasn't so much about the rat but about this mans obsession with destroying it.
It starts when his wife and young son go on vacation to visit her parents.Soon after Peter starts encountering the rat.He tries to work and the rat is thumping against the ceiling.He tries setting rat poison and rat traps all to no avail.One night the rat comes out of the toilet while he was peeing.Another night after taking in a stray cat he finds it ripped up and killed.He goes to the basment and finds a nest of little rats only to be attacked.The attack scenes are pretty good and actually kind of chilling.The rat completely took over his life.One of my favorite scenes is at the business dinner when Peter starts to spew off all these random facts about rats.The final scene in which he completely destroys his house trying to kill this rat is awesome and shows just how obsessed he has become.
Overall this is a solid flick.It delivers a few nice scares,the music is eery and the setting is also cool.Peter Weller also gives a great and believable performance.Give this movie a chance and you will enjoy this.
Summary of Of Unknown Origin
An advertising executive battles a giant, intelligent rat that has invaded his townhouse.A low-rent horror flick from the early 1980s, Of Unknown Origin 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 than idiot-versus-rat.
Finding an angry rodent swimming in your toilet might be a pretty unpleasant prospect, but cinematically speaking it is 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 is 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 roo! ting 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. --Paul Philpott
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