Rat Week continues! In an effort to make this not be a one note week about groups of people screaming at unmoving piles of rats, we’re going a much different direction today with Bottom Feeder. Starring Tom Sizemore, Bottom Feeder asks the bold question of, ‘what happens when everyone has a plan, but none of those plans make any sense?’
Before I get any further into the plans, let’s get into the premise, which is simple, Dr. Nathaniel Leech develops an experimental serum to allow rapid regeneration of injuries, a concept that catches the eye of gravely injured magnate Charles Deaver, who finances the operation on the condition that he gets first dibs on the serum. When the time comes to test it, Deaver has his hired help brutalize the good Dr. and then inject him with the serum. Unfortunately, they don’t give him the proper dosage, and he mutates into a rat-like monster, which then begins to terrorize the tunnels he was abandoned in. Extra unfortunately, a crew of maintenance workers are sent down there that very same day and will have to contend with this monster.
While the basics of the plot sound incredibly simple: scientist makes formula, formula turns scientist into monster, heroes must fight the monster, what makes Bottom Feeder stand out is that the specifics of everyone’s plans are so convoluted and confusing that I’m still trying to reason out why everyone did what they did. Let me explain. Wealthy financier Deaver gives Dr. Leech money to develop his formula in order to cure the financier’s injuries, while Dr. Leech needs money to care for his extremely ill wife. Deaver has stated that his life is miserable and this serum is his only hope, so he desperately wants it to succeed. Deaver then has his thugs brutalize Dr. Leech, inject him with a completely random amount of the serum, then not give him the secondary stabilizing compound, forcing Dr. Leech to feed on rats. If Deaver’s goal is to test the serum, then why sabotage your own test? Sure, hurting the Dr. and forcing him to be a test subject is evil, but it’s not particularly effective.
Huge parts of the movie have this exact problem. People start doing things, story starts happening, and it’s never clear why people are doing certain things or what is happening or what the plans are or how they knew certain things. While this is the story’s biggest weakness, its actually the movie’s second greatest strength. I can appreciate any movie that keeps me guessing the entire time as to what is going on, and while this never approaches the level of, say, a Neil Breen movie, there are a number of plot twists that come out of nowhere and never get explained, especially when the government gets involved out of nowhere.
While the villains are laying elaborate plans and causing all sorts of problems for themselves, our group of heroes is charmingly simple. Tom Sizemore is of course the maintenance worker in charge, but there’s a diverse group of workers who are all decent people, if not always bright, and it’s easy to sympathize with them as the corporate and government conspiracies spiral out of control. There are a few other characters, including a particularly strange homeless “Jamaican” man whose accent and mannerisms are about as authentic as Rastamouse, but he’s charming in his own offbeat way. While the acting isn’t always stellar, you get the sense that everyone is trying to take this seriously and make a good movie, which definitely elevates the material.
The real greatest strength of this movie is the creature design, I love this weird gross rat monster. Smartly, the creature isn’t overcomplicated, it’s just a human/rat hybrid that looks almost like its melting between those two forms, and I love how the prosthetics come across, especially in the dark and grungy look of the tunnels it appears in. The physical performance is also convincing, looking animalistic and grotesque, in tune with how it appears. This design isn’t breaking new ground, but it’s a great example of the power of practical effects and prosthetics.
Bottom Feeder never crosses into being a great movie, but it’s a lot of fun, especially if you like gooey body horror nonsense. In a lot of ways it feels like an 80s throwback, particularly the ending which is both completely absurd and shockingly a huge downer. I gotta respect that.