willard

Director: daniel mann

Actor: bruce davison,elsa lanchester,sondra locke,ernest borgnine

Data Published: Fri Jul 30 1971

Genres: Horror

Key Words: character name as title,psychotronic film,literature on screen,european literature on screen,irish literature on screen

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067991/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_(1971_film)

Description: Willard is a movie starring Bruce Davison, Elsa Lanchester, and Sondra Locke. A social misfit uses his only friends, his pet rats, to exact revenge on his tormentors.

Plot: Willard Stiles is a meek social misfit who develops an affinity for rats. He lives in a large house with only his cranky and decrepit mother Henrietta for company. On his 27th birthday, he is humiliated to come home to a birthday party thrown by his mother, where all of the attendees are her friends. After leaving the party in embarrassment, he notices a rat in his backyard and tosses it pieces of his birthday cake. The next morning he feeds another rat. His mother tells him that he needs to kill the rats, which Willard refuses to do. When Willard goes to work, he is scolded by his boss Al Martin for tardiness. He later returns home and begins playing with a rat he names Queenie. A white rat becomes his best companion and he names him Socrates. Numerous other rats emerge, including a bigger black specimen whom he names Ben. At work, Al continues antagonizing Willard. Willard sneaks into a party Al is hosting, opens a rat-filled suitcase, and urges them to get the food and ruin the party. Al and his guests are terrorized by the rats' sudden appearance. The next day Willard's mother dies, and he discovers that the house is heavily mortgaged. Willard is pressured by the banks to give up the house. Willard decides to bring Socrates and Ben to the office. Later, his friend/temporary assistant, Joan, feels sorry for him and in order to ease his loneliness, gives him a cat named Chloe, but he hands Chloe off to a stranger. The rat population is growing too large and Willard cannot afford to keep feeding them. He decides to steal money from his one of his coworkers, using his now-trained rats. He sneaks into the coworker's house and orders the rats to "tear it up", putting them in front of his bedroom door, which results in the man and his wife waking up and fleeing the house upon opening the door and seeing the rats. The next day, Willard again takes Ben and Socrates to work. One of the workers spots the rats and Al bludgeons Socrates to death, devastating Willard. He gets another blow when he is fired, along with Joan. Later that night, while Al is still at work, Willard goes to back to the office, this time with all of his rats. He confronts Al over the death of Socrates and finds that Al is trying to mortgage and buy his house, but when Al lashes back, Willard instructs the rats to kill him. Unnerved by Al's gruesome death, Willard abandons Ben, goes home and begins sealing up any holes through which the rats could gain entry. Willard has dinner with Joan, but he is startled to look up and see Ben staring at him from a corner shelf. It is followed by his shocking discovery of hordes of rats in the basement invading his home. He orders Joan to leave and locks the door before confronting Ben. Willard stalls Ben, telling him that he will get him some food, yet begins mixing a box of rat poison with the food. Ben reads the box and squeals loudly, alerting the others. Willard follows Ben upstairs, trying to kill him as the rats pursue him. Willard corners Ben in a storage room in the house, but when he hears the rats coming, he barricades the door. The rats begin gnawing at the door and eventually break in to devour him as he shouts, "I was good to you, Ben!"