Black Rat is a 2010 Japanese horror slasher film about six schoolgirls being stalked by a killer wearing a bloodstained rat mask.
Directed by Kenta Fukasaku from a screenplay written by Futoshi Fujita. Produced by Wakana Kanno and Jun Kubo. Executive produced by Hiroki Sato and Ryôichi Sumitani.
The movie stars Misaki Yonemura, Hiroya Matsumoto, Rina Saito, Makoto Sakamoto, Hiroya Matsumoto, Haruka Shimizu, Mika Shimizu, Rihoko Shimomiya and Shôta Miyazaki.
Plot:
Six loosely connected friends are haunted by what appears to be the reincarnated ghost of their friend Asuka, who jumped off the school building after she realised that these so-called friends were anything but.
The “ghost” has asked the friends to meet at their high school at night, where she wants to dish out punishments to them based on the ways that they hurt her feelings.
Wearing a large bloodstained rat mask, the “ghost” takes a few of them down, until she is confronted by Asuka’s best friend who reveals the sordid truth…
Our review:
The B-grade J-horror market is massive and it’s insane. There have been so many titles produced that you’ve never heard of, let alone will ever see. Black Rat is not one of those films.
Often these types of movies are just avenues for J-pop idols to make a bit of money at the expense of their hapless and obsessive fan base, but as far as I can tell, this doesn’t appear to be an idol movie. Far from it, this appears to be a deliberate attempt to appeal to an international audience using Japanese schoolgirls in a traditional slasher setting. And it kinda works, and it kinda doesn’t.
Surprisingly, what should be a simple little revenge slasher film is turned upside down towards the end where the twist is revealed that makes little to no sense at all.
There is nothing inherently wrong with Black Rat. You could swap out the cast with a bunch of annoying American teens and release the movie on Tubi without losing any of the vibe of the Japanese version, which was probably the main aim anyway.
And thus, this doesn’t feel like a J-horror film. When the Japanese attempt to make slasher movies, they are usually heavily inspired by American films, and this feels no different.
We’ve got a mask-wearing killer – two of them, a twist at the end, some fairly mundane kills – and most of those occur off camera as the movie does this annoying thing where it pauses the vision as someone is about to die – and most annoyingly the cast is very, very American in their interactions and behaviour. I fail to believe that any group of friends in any school around the world acts like the seven teens in this film. At least it’s short. That’s another net positive.
When it comes to cheap J-horror slashers, you could do a lot worse than this one, such as the movies Find or Execution Island. Just don’t expect a uniquely Japanese horror film here and you’ll probably enjoy it.
The Arty Dans, MOVIES & MANIA
SHOCKMANIA YouTube review:
Trailer [240p – poor quality]:
Original title:
クロネズミ aka Kuronezumi
