There are those who, growing up in the seventies, didn’t realize that Michael Jackson’s chart-topping single “Ben” was about a rat. In 1971 one of the most successful films at the box office was Willard. Apart from a remake in 2003, the movie fell from public consciousness despite its box-office success. Ben (1972) was, of course, the sequel to Willard, named after the main rat in the initial film.
The lack of awareness of this connection suggests that in wider culture the influence of Willard is under-appreciated. Consider Disney’s 2007 smash hit, Ratatouille. Both the original Willard and Ratatouille have similar layouts and, upon close reflection, some very similar scenes. Let’s begin with the socially awkward young man. In Willard, it’s well, Willard. His father started a successful steel mill that has been taken over by his shady second-in-command, Al Martin. In Ratatouille Alfredo Linguini, a socially awkward young man, gets a job in the restaurant his father (whom he didn’t know) started. Not only that, but the sous chef, Skinner, has taken the business over from the departed Gusteau. Two young men are both working in their fathers’ businesses, which were unjustly taken from them.
Then there are the rats. Willard befriends Queenie, and later Socrates. He learns to communicate with them, teaching them such basic words as (this is surely not a coincidence) “food.” Soon the hordes of rats, including the free-thinking Ben, follow Willard’s orders. In Ratatouille the order is reversed. Remy, the rat, figures out how to communicate with Linguini. Still, the plot involves lonely boy and rats talking to one another. Both of the young men keep their rodent associations secret, of course.
Willard uses his rats to punish Al Martin by sending them—is this happenstance?—into a fancy dress party where they get into the food. Martin attacks the rats with chairs and implements, whatever is close at hand. When Remy is discovered in Gusteau’s, he’s chased out of the kitchen by the staff throwing all kinds of utensils at him. Not only that, when Willard realizes that Ben has taken umbrage at his efforts to kill off his fellow rats, he again chases him out of the kitchen with a broom and throws pots at him.
Both young men fall in love with a woman with whom they work. The women take pity on the men because they just can’t seem to fit in. Their romance is troubled by the man’s friendship with the rats. In both films the rats assist the young man in his goals by addressing his nemesis—they kill Martin for Willard and they prepare the meal for Anton Ego on Linguini’s behalf.
Once Remy is caught, Skinner sends Linguini out to kill the rodent. He’s about to drown him in the Seine when he realizes that Remy understands his language. Willard, after offing Mr. Martin, decides the rats are too dangerous and he takes them to the garden pond to drown them. Earlier, however, he started to trap them with the intent of drowning, but saved them at the last minute. Sound a little familiar? Both films have the main rat, now a friend, caught by the antagonist: Martin kills Socrates in the storage room and Skinner captures Remy at the restaurant.
Both movies end with the rats ultimately getting their way. In Willard, Ben oversees the death of Willard and the taking over of his house. Linguini loses Gasteau’s, but opens Ratatouille, a café where the rats run the kitchen. It seems clear that Ratatouille is at least partially based on Willard.
Horror films quite often have an unexpected, or perhaps unnoticed effect on culture. Those early seventies fans of Michael Jackson probably supposed the song “Ben” was about friendship. It is, but the friendship is between a boy and a rat. Although Willard is a form of swarm horror—what makes the rats scary is their sheer numbers, able to strike fear into a bragging steel mill owner—rats have largely fallen out of the genre. Indeed, IMDb’s list of ten movies featuring rats is dominated by cartoons and the original Willard isn’t even listed!
Rats were sometimes one of Disney’s elements of fear. The original Lady and the Tramp (1955) had a rat trying to bite the baby and it was the tramp’s killing of that rat that saves him at the end. Beyond that, however, rats seem to have left horror consciousness. There’s the moment in 1984 (1984) when the agents of Big Brother threaten to put rats in the cage around Winston Smith’s head, but the movie doesn’t focus on rats. Willard, followed by the less successful Ben, were the only major rat-based horror films that preceded Ratatouille.
Disney has used toned-down horror for many of its children’s movies. Think of The Beauty and the Beast (1991), or The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). Witches abound in early Disney. Doesn’t it seem likely that Disney might cash in on a nearly forgotten horror film from decades ago? It’s difficult to say how widespread the buzz around the 2007 Willard was. The reboot was generally well received but in no way a blockbuster. Ratatouille, released the same year, was praised as one of the best films made in the new millennium. Horror often bears the brunt of social animus, but the ideas, reworked into children’s movies, prove their appeal. Disney seems to have figured this out fairly early on. Its feature films have often not-terribly scary monsters in them, as early as the witches in Snow White (1937) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). The former, of course, has been remade into a horror movie (1997).
Willard, however, features more than just rats. The lonely, troubled young man—which Alfred Hitchcock exploited in Psycho (1960)—is equally part of the horror. Willard’s social awkwardness betrays an underlying problem. After his rats kill Al Martin, he decides to drown them. It’s clear he has relationship issues. Instead of opening a business together, the rats turn on Willard in the end. Disney knows its limits (as well as business), and so instead of offing Linguini next time you’re in Paris you can grab a bite at the rats’ joint business venture with him, Ratatouille.
Related: “A Boy’s Best Friend: Willard’s Coming Out Story,” by Dane Engelhart
Steve A. Wiggins is an independent scholar who has taught at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Carroll College, and Rutgers and Montclair State Universities. He is the author of Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies (McFarland, 2018). and Nightmares with the Bible: The Good Book and Cinematic Demons (Lexington Books, 2021), which we review here. Check out his website. Steve has also written for Horror Homeroom on “The Golem as the Perfect Monster” and sex and death in The Lighthouse and The Witch.
Check out our review of Steve’s book, Nightmare with the Bible: The Good Book and Cinematic Demons, here.
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