‘Rats!’ Is A Heart-Felt, Gross-Out Comedy For Kids of The Early 2000s [Fantasia 2024 Review]
As a child of the late 90s and early 00s, I was raised on a steady diet of absurdist YouTube videos, bizarre animated shorts on Newgrounds, and whatever was airing on Adult Swim when I stayed at my dad’s house on Friday nights. As a result, like many of my generation, my early sense of humor was warped into finding comedy in the darkest and strangest of places. That comedy is the essence of writers/directors Carl Fry and Maxwell Nalevansky‘s new film Rats!, which had its world premiere at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival. Chock-full of gross-out humor, emo haircuts, and a female cop who loves the c-word, Rats! is a shockingly touching coming-of-age story that’ll have you in stitches, especially if you grew up steeped in the kind of media Fry and Nalevansky channel here.
Raphael (Luke Wilcox) is a 19-year-old kid puttering around his hometown of Pfresno (yes that spelling is correct and a running gag throughout the film). He’s taking art classes at the local community college, trying to figure out what to do with his life. But when he’s busted tagging a crucial historical landmark—an old, broken payphone booth—his mom sends him to live with his cousin Mateo (Darius Autry).
But the stipulation: Raphael has to spy on his cousin for Officer Williams (Danielle Evon Ploeger), who seems to believe Mateo is selling nuclear warheads to the Taliban. Yes, you read that correctly. From there, Raphael meets a plethora of strange characters including rapper Pflophouse, Mateo’s creepy roommate Nestor, and the manic pixie emo girl of his dreamers, Bernadette (Khali Sykes).
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To reveal any more of the bizarre plot would ruin the journey of Rats! But honestly, the plot isn’t necessarily the reason to see this film. It’s the sense of humor that flows throughout, with jokes coming at a mile a minute. And the queen of those jokes is Ploeger as Officer Williams in a role that actually allows a main female character to be a despicable and raunchy piece of trash. So often comedies relegate those roles to men, but here, Ploeger is comedy gold as a feral human that was unfortunately offered a badge and a gun. She screeches, screams, punches, kicks, and makes it known that she doesn’t give a single shit about anyone or anything. It’s absolutely incredible.
In contrast to Ploeger’s chaos is Wilcox as the quiet but sweet Raphael. While he’s new to acting, that works in Wilcox’s favor as his shy smiles and occasional hesitancy make his character more grounded. And his character feeling grounded is crucial in this film which wants to be ridiculous, but never fully unmoored from reality. Opposite Raphael is Sykes as Bernadette, who sports an Invader Zim backpack and the pink chunky highlights of my high school dreams. Again, Bernadette is a grounded character and never falls into parody. Plus, we finally get a Black alt chick as the love interest in a genre film!
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Rats! is gross, rude, hysterical, and, most importantly, never punches down. This is how you do a raunchy, gross-out comedy in 2024. Almost every main cast member is a person of color, with the main antagonist (and the punchline of a majority of the film’s jokes) being a white female maniac cop who shouldn’t be allowed near even the idea of a gun. Yes, there are poop jokes and a close-up of a (fake) butthole. Yes, this movie will offend most people’s grandparents. But importantly Fry and Nalevansky never lose sight of the heart at the core of a movie described as the crude union between Street Trash and The Greasy Strangler.
This absolutely is not a film for everyone. It’s repulsive and crude, but it’s also full of heart. If you were raised by YouTube in the early aughts and feasted on Saladfingers, Jenna Marbles, YouTube Poops, and all matters of Newgrounds animated abominations, Rats! is chicken soup for the twisted soul: comforting, silly, and perfect for the inner dirtbag that lives in all of us.
Summary
Rats! is chicken soup for the twisted soul: comforting, silly, and perfect for the inner dirtbag that lives in all of us
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