A plushie rat standing on a script for 'The Rats' by Agatha Christie. Beside them is a kindle showing a script of Lovecraft's 'The Rats in the Walls', adapted by SR Sellens.
First read-through of the double-bill I'll be directing in October, featuring all the rodents!
Fun fact: Agatha Christie and HP Lovecraft were born less than a month apart (Aug/Sept 1890).
#AgathaChristie #HPLovecraft #TheRats #TheRatsInTheWalls #Theatre
Again, it’s pretty cool that a working-class, debut author invented a new genre, or at least intensified an existing one. Takes talent.
What doesn’t take talent is to write the exact same book but replace the rats with slugs *cough cough* Shaun Hutson
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
So: The Rats. Good book? Kinda.
I mean I didn’t LOVE reading all the explicit violence and gore, but it was innovative at the time.
It feels like there is genuine heart to the novel, for all the execution is a bit wobbly.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Fair to say that things get a bit silly in the last couple of chapters.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Harris hits a giant, bloated rat and it pops ‘like a balloon full of blood.’
Ewww.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
On to chapter 17 and the big ending to the (pretty short) book.
Turns out there are extra, super mutated rats which are immune to ultrasound, and also kinda funny lookin’. So Harris gets to go and be a hero by taking them out.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
The solution: a very long exposition dump!
To be honest, doing this twice in one book is once too many. Go with the disease or the ultrasound as the big climax, not both.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
There’s a lot more chaos and slaughter but I think you get the point by now.
Big rats go chomp (this time at a cinema), and everyone is left scratching their heads about what to do.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Chapters 14-15: the rats creep back in…
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Let’s just say that a non-zero number of dogs die in this book. Way above zero really.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Chapters 13-14: in brief, they seem to have a solution that works (infecting the rats with a deadly disease), and things appear to calm down.
It’s a bit more complicated of course and involves some gratuitous cruelty to animals.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Herbert’s inexperience as a writer shows a bit in this chapter. Lots of exposition which isn’t really necessary and slows the story down.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Realising that this is basically a creature feature crossed with a war movie.
Chapter 12 opens with stories of Londoners dying/escaping the rats, which combined with the two ‘disaster’ chapters remind me of the Blitz.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
It’s a weirdly practical chapter. There is a lot of discussion of the logistics of fighting giant mutant rats using hoses, dogs, pokers, etc.
Tone isn’t so much ‘horror’ as ‘how do we solve this nagging problem.’
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Chapter 11 is another big rat attack, this time on a school.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
The gender assumption of this book seems to be that boys are dumb and girls are useless, for the most part.
Very 1970s.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Chapter 10: some passengers arrive at the same tube station and find everyone being attacked by Rats.
This chapter depends more on tension than body horror as the passengers try to find their way through the fire/giant vermin, although the descriptions are still pretty gross.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Chapter 9: a football fan gets eaten in a tube station.
Kind of a theme for Herbert to be best at describing victims of the Rats. I feel more empathy for most of the one-off characters than Harris.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
There’s genuine anger in this book about the conditions which allowed a giant rat problem to develop.
The whole society of London feels rotting and predator, and the Rats are a symbol of that.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
I’ve said it before but Rats are just scarier than slugs. Writing a horror story about slugs was always a dumb idea, Shaun Hutson.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
The rats just LOOKING at you is horrifying enough.
Incidentally Ferris is a guy we’ve just met who seems like he is definitely going to live. Weird that he’s wearing a bright red shirt in all his scenes, though…
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Honestly adding a fatal disease to the mix isn’t necessary. Giant, aggressive rats are dangerous enough.
Seems like just an opportunity to add more body horror when the supply is already…quite adequate.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Chapter 6: we find out that two victims with minor rat bites have both died horribly.
Ru-roh…
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Interesting that the first two victims with a POV are outcasts because of their sexuality in different ways (a gay man and a promiscuous woman).
They are depicted with a lot of sympathy, considering it was the 1970s.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Chapter 5: some tramps are attacked by rats.
We again get a lot of detail and backstory for Mary Kelly, our main POV character for this chapter.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
Another story which feels like it might have happened.
I bet there were a lot of rats in the bombed-out areas of London.
#TheRats #JamesHerbert
