Willard (2003)

Reviewed By-Sean Patrick Dolan
 Director:  Glen Morgan
Cast:  Crispin Glover, R. Lee Ermey, Laura Elena Harring


"Willard!  There are rats in the basement!"

With what has to be one of the greatest understatements in movie history begins what is also perhaps the most over-the-top remake of a horror film to date.  Anyone that feared a scene by scene remake of the 1971 cult classic (along the lines of 1998's Psycho remake) need not have worried-this film tells the same basic story but it only borrows a handful of essential scenes from the original. What we have instead is a film that doesn't know whether it wants to be a modern Gothic, a black comedy, a brutal psychological study of madness, or a visceral thrill ride of rats, violence, and mayhem- in fact, the result is all of the above.  The overall effect is a VERY dark film, a highly stylized caricature of the original, and a showcase for the considerable and odd talents of Hollywood's strangest leading man, Crispin Glover.



The Stiles family home has become a full-blown gothic mansion, a three floor sprawling monstrosity rather than merely a large but typical run-down old house.  The basement is a dank subterranean world in which Willard seems more at home in than anywhere else in the film. Willard's mother, who had very little screen time in the original, is much more prominent in this film  She has been transformed by makeup to look like a ghastly apparition from beyond the grave, while her character is ostensibly dying from some sort of cancer.  Willard's relationship with his mother is much creepier in this version, but comparisons to Norman Bates in Psycho (which I have seen in other reviews) are not warranted. 

The main departure from the original is this film's treatment of its protagonist. Willard is not just a shy young man suffering from lack of confidence and a probable social anxiety disorder, he is, from the beginning of the film to the end, a very disturbed young man.  While the events of the film pushed Bruce Davison's Willard over the edge, Crispin Glover's version already had a considerable head start.  Whether this is the result of his father's suicide (a subject not even broached in the original), his Mother's apparent mental illness, or his abuse at the hands of  Frank Martin (R. Lee Ermey), the man who stole his father's company, or simply all of the above is not certain.  Glover's performance as Willard ranges from shy, barely audible attempts to address his assistant Cathryn (Laura Elena Harring) to his disturbing nocturnal professions of love to his friend Socrates ("I'll never let anyone hurt you Socrates, never. I promise, I promise I promise").  From devastating breakdowns of depression and near suicide after the death of his mother to chilling displays of rage in the funeral parlor when he is told that his parents left him with massive debts and the in films' most dramatic scene- the final confrontation with his boss.  Though it is almost word-for-word the same speech as in the original, Glover's delivery makes Bruce Davison's look like a two-year-old's temper tantrum.  Delivered while poking Martin
hard in the ribs with the very same mop handle that killed Socrates, Crispin Glover freezes the audience's blood with lines like "You made me hate myself.  But right now, at this moment, I LIKE me", before giving the final command, "Tear him up!" 



Crispin Glover paces, twitches and howls in emotional pain and rage in a sweat-drenched, exhausting performance in the role he was born to play.  I cannot imagine this film with anyone else in the title role.  R. Lee Ermey's performance is nearly as good- his abuse of Willard is much more brutal than in the original, and we delight in seeing his pain over the slashing of his beloved luxury car's tires.  Even more so the audience revels in his demise at the hands of Willard's friends.  Martin is the ultimate bastard, abusing him in front of his employees, insulting his dead father, and making it clear that he hates Willard and would fire him in an instant if he were legally able to.  After Willard's mother dies, he not only fires him- knowing that Willard can't afford an attorney to sue- but tries to force him to sell his family home.  An amusing line, delivered in the middle of other ultra aggressive business philosophies Martin is trying to impress on the chronically late for work Willard, is a foreshadowing of his own demise- "What you don't understand is that business is a rat race.  And I do not intend to let all the other rats devour me!" 

There are numerous humorous scenes in this movie, although some seriously threaten to cross the line and will likely fail to amuse some viewers.  A standout is the creepy but generally harmless conversation between Willard and Mother, who thinks that he was using corn oil to masturbate in the bathroom when was actually using it to save his new friend Socrates from a glue trap. Slightly more vicious is his abuse of a little dog that follows him home from Martin's house after the tire slashing incident- the dog will not leave him alone, so Willard places the animal in his bag full of rats for a few minutes.  When he takes him out the little creature, scratched and bitten in numerous places, yips and runs away with his tale between his legs.
I could not exclude from this review a scene that will likely be remembered for a very long time- the infamous cat scene which many have already complained was far beyond the pale.  Katherine gives Willard a cat after his mother's death, and Willard puts it inside the door and leaves, not wanting to let the young woman come in and see the rat infested squalor he is living in.  The cat jumps up on a chair and turns on a stereo remote, after which Michael Jackson's song "Ben" (from the soundtrack of 1972's BEN, a forgettable sequel to Willard) begins playing on an easy listening channel.  It is the background music for an excruciatingly long scene in which the cat flees from the hundreds of rats in Willard's house.  It jumps from tabletop to cabinet top, running from room to room, but the rats are relentless, gnawing the legs off the furniture to try to topple it and get to the cat.  The cat eventually flees to the basement and is foiled in one last-ditch escape attempt by Ben, falling into a sea of rats and being consumed instantly.

The rats give Glover a run for his money as the true stars of the film  The special effects in this movie are amazing, and anyone that felt cheated by the original film will get their fill of rats here.  In the original trained rats were used, which limited the number they were able to put on the screen.  This modern version utilizes both live animals and CGI effects, which allow the filmmakers to fill the screen with an absurd number of rodents- I would estimate the population of Willard's home, conservatively, at around ten thousand.  By the end of the film Willard cannot even afford to feed the creatures and so, led by Ben, they revolt and overrun the kitchen and other rooms searching for food.  His house is soon littered with gnawed items and rat droppings. In other scenes, such as Willard's final attack on his boss Frank Martin, there are enough rats to fill a service elevator up to Willard's shoulders and to collapse the ceiling of a room in the Stiles' home.  Early scenes of Glover training the rats, with the aid of the super-intelligent leader Socrates, are mesmerizing.  He builds a series of ramps to teach them to climb and maneuver around obstacles and sets up old tires to teach them to chew through those that are impassable at his command, "Tear!"  He teaches them to swarm in and out of two large bags when he says "In!" or "Out!"  As in the original, this is preparation for a prank- the destruction of Martin's new car- and not a homicide.  It is only after the devastating loss of  both Mother and Socrates, as well as additional abuses at the  hands of the cruel, heartless Martin that Willard completely snaps. 

Another huge difference in this version of the film is the treatment of Ben- he is now "Big Ben".  a giant rat the size of a small dog, and he is not only mischievous, he is downright evil.  There is actually a subplot in this film in which Ben seems jealous of Willard's affection for Socrates, who gets to sleep in Willard's bed and go to work with him.  Ben on the other hand, receives no affection from Willard, who tries but fails to keep Ben in the basement and out of the bags he transports the rats in.  He is smart enough and determined enough to either gnaw through a wall or figure out some other way in, and he always pops up where he is not wanted.  Throughout the course of the film Willard throws Ben in the basement, hits at him with a cane, and generally manhandles the rat, who is so huge that most sane people would call the National Guard if they saw it in their home.  As in the original though, Ben is good enough finally for Willard when he needs him to take Socrates' place and lead the attack on Martin. And once again, Willard abandons Ben and the hit squad after Martin's death, only to be confronted by these  friends he betrayed when Ben leads the group back to the house to get their revenge.  However, there is a twist this time- don't expect Willard's final battle with the rats to end with quite the same result.

Director Glen Morgan wrote for the first season of the X-Files and Chris Carter's much darker project Millennium, as well as working on two other shows, the Others and The Lone Gunmen, both of which were short lived.  In his young film career he has directed Final Destination and the One starring Jet Li.  It is his experience in X-Files and Millennium that paid off here, as he has succeeded in making a very dark and atmospheric film, from the creative opening credits sequence (slightly reminiscent of Seven) to the final battle between Willard and his former friends and the darkly humorous twist ending.  Morgan successfully balances scenes of black comedy with others that are truly gut-wrenching and ugly.  Similarly, Crispin Glover's tour through the twisted depths of Willard's damaged psyche is never overshadowed by the CGI animated mayhem of Ben and the other rats.  While this film tells the same story as the original, the differences, not just in thirty years of technology and production values but in the tone and style of this film, make this a film that stands on its own, much more a re-adaptation than a true remake.  Shirley Walker's more aggressive modern soundtrack is vastly superior to Alex North's wishy-washy original. This film is a diabolic mixture of several styles, almost as schizophrenic as its title character appears at times- I find the overall effect lends itself well to the nature of the plot and Willard's character itself.  Don't believe the negative hype- this film is vastly underrated and does not deserve the bashing it is taking in a lot of reviews!  If you have any remaining doubts, Crispin Glover's chilling cover of Michael Jackson's "Ben", which plays over the ending credits, is reason enough to see this film.

5.0 Bitch Slaps

 

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