Rat Fink (1965) User Reviews

A psychotic folk-rocker takes a trip to oblivion

[jobla · 7/10 · 11 June 2017]

There just aren't many films about psychotic folk-rockers, but this long thought-lost 1965 psychodrama blazes that trail. Schuyler Hayden portrays a mentally disturbed young musician who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. The film is a low-budget affair, but director James "THE SADIST" Landis and the soon-to-be-famous cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond have crafted an edgy portrait of narcissism run rampant.

Aside from the expressionistic B&W cinematography, Ronald Stein's pulsating rock 'n' roll score contributes nervous energy to the events on screen. The music is somewhat reminiscent of the great "orchestral rockabilly" score that accompanied the car chases in Robert Mitchum's THUNDER ROAD.

Like 1960's PRIVATE PROPERTY (which also disappeared from the marketplace in the mid-1960's), RAT FINK has been unearthed more than 50 years after its final drive-in theater engagement. It's great to have these long-unseen films resurface on Blu-ray.

Hard to believe it was done in '65

[dragoshilbert · 6/10 · 22 October 2017]

I have mixed feelings about this movie, it is not too slow, not too fast but somehow you still feel strange. Schuyler Haydn made just one other movie before he died in a plane crash, so this movie has also a historical value. Schuyler Haydn looks perfect in the role of psychotic folk-rocker. I think what disturb me the most is the nice-bad boy, in my personal opinion, the most shaking personification of devil in movie and in reality. The movie is doing a good job in showing the evil in such a way that you will never want to encounter such a thing in your whole life. The other similar nice but bad evil impersonation, that I found also disturbing, is Mark Pellegrino in Lucifer role from Supernatural series. Evil as bad is easy to understand but evil as nice is hard to comprehend. This is the feeling that I had during the movie and it is hard to believe it was done during the '60. It is not boring and somehow manage to have the same speed from the beginning to the end, showing how a life with bad decisions can end up in only one way. Of course, all with some of the era exaggerations in acting but will be easy to forget because are only short moments. The scene between the main personage and his father has some deep dialog. In current times, we see such a scene usually at the end of the movie so you may wonder what the movie has still to show after this point, I will let you to discover and you will not be disappointed. I think is a good movie that had never had a change to be a hit because of the nice evil personification, watch it not for entertainment but for having a meditation about evil in life and a travel to the '60.

The rise and fall of a venomous, Machiavellian pop-singer in rediscovered B gem.

[EyeAskance · 15 November 2018]

Teenage farmboy Lonnie(Schuylar Hayden) rides the rails in search of the high life. He's traveling light, packing little more than his saccharine charm, boyish good looks, and coldhearted ambition. With unconscionable zeal, he seduces a middle-aged housewife and robs her blind, then casually heads toward the community dance hall. The headliner attraction is a garden-variety hip-swiveling rock & roll upstart, and Lonnie envisions himself twisting and shaking in those teen-idol shoes. Driven by jealousy and pitiless greed, he douses the young performer's car with petrol, sets him ablaze, and makes speedy headway toward the Hollywood office of his agent. Thus begins his dramatic rise to super-stardom, one which leaves a liquor-slicked trail of death, despair, and broken hearts.

The long-presumed-lost RAT FINK spent a good many years in the top-ten of several noted cinephiles' "most wanted" lists. Now available in a great-looking Blu-Ray release, it's a welcome addition to the recent windfall of similarly rediscovered B films.

Director James Landis has long been known to genre fans for his revered 1963 B classic THE SADIST, a potent little thriller which centers on a frighteningly savage and reckless spree-killer(Arch Hall, Jr.). This lesser known follow-up is a decidedly larger-scale production exploring variably similar foundations, though with a markedly different, yet no less formidable antagonist. Lonnie is expressionless, icy, and one-dimensional...a towering wall of self. He is also enterprising, calculating, and just intelligent enough to size-up potential victims-to-be, and, perhaps most importantly...he's handsome(and knows it). His guilty conscience does nettle him from time-to-time, a problem easily remedied with a cocktail and a pretty new female conquest. Despite being wholeheartedly dissociative, he frequently hosts lavish house parties attended by a prismatic mix of lowbrow movers-and-shakers, flagitious swingers, and beatniks of the typically misrepresentational Hollywood variety.

As with THE SADIST, RAT FINK is adroitly lensed by phenom cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, and is a more polished and roundly professional effort than that film overall. Schuylar Hayden can't hold a candle to Arch Hall, Jr.'s unforgettably evil, frenetic intensity, but it's a heady screen debut nonetheless. Performances from the supporting players range from adequate to impressive in this overlooked and, for its time, audaciously cruel slice of B movie Heaven.

7/10...recommended.

I know this is not an easily found movie

[lburg-61115 · 9/10 · 6 February 2024]

I know this is a 'lost movie' and not easily found, but despite its exploitation roots it is about a million times more interesting than anything new out there. It is entertaining, gritty, filmed in a 'noir' style and features an 'abortion' sequence that is horrifying and insanely funny at the same time. Any fans of Harlan Ellison's Rockabilly/Spider Kiss out there? This is a very similar story and I suspect built on the same careers and rumors that holllywood insiders would have known at the time.

The acting is good for a b flick, I came to see it because of the Arch Hall film this team made before this. The cinematography is well done, and there are some repeats of motifs in shots and lighting such as fractured mirror images and swinging/staccato light that reflect the brokenness of the character(s).

Too cool for school and ahead of it's time.