It's amazing how underrated this movie is. Yes, kind of bad acting. Some would say the script could be better, I think it was good. But the rest of the movie is great... the methaphor of the city being filled with more and more rats until some point in which you don't even notice it is perfect. And all the trash, danger, bad smell and disgust they bring to the society is what it transforms it into what it is.The rats are the people, and they are the rats. But when you let them transform you into one of them you just end up destroying yourself.. Great movie.

I was watching this laying on my bed, surprisingly those rats didn't make me uncomfortable. Odd premise but it works. Bruce Davison did an excellent job potraying this socially awkward, sympathetic yet conflicted young man who often treated unfairly by people around him. He and his gang got the charm. The story is engaging. Mr. Martin is really an evil man I hate him so much. Solid revenge horror film.

Willard is an extremely old movie, nearly 50 years old. Yet, even though it was pretty famous in its time and broke some records and influenced a number of movies to come, as also being fueling a genre with not yet many movies, it's rather unknown for most of the younger generations due to an rights issue due to which it wasn't also never released on neither VHS nor DVD. Fortunately this time is over now, and if you want to, you can get this movie in a stunning restoration on BD. Judging such an old movie is often hard, what was cool effects then might be boring today and also acting and storytelling standards have since long changed. I can totally see how for new viewers Willard might not live up to the praises one might have heard. The movie isn't as thrilling and captive - it's even not an natural horror movie, even though this one influenced them heavily. It's rather a natural drama - the title giving boy "Willard" is in the center of the movie, his social awkwardness, not fitting in and being pushed around by everyone, until he finds his "release" by pushing around creatures of his own. But there is a lot to this movie that one should take into consideration. First, and this is undesputabel - there are some great actors, most of all Ernest Borgnine, whom you will hate from the minute you see him. And then there is our main character Bruce Davison, who up to then did not have any acting role, kick-starting his career with this one. As for the rats, no tricks where used - they are all real, and in this movie 600 rats where actually used. These where not harmed - plastic rats where used whenever a scene was too dangerous. And because it is not possible to train rats, these could just be lured with tricks (like peanutbutter smears), and so a large number of scenes where improvised, and there are scenes that had 30 to 40 takes. Willard was the first movie to ever use rats (many other natural horror movies with rats as protagonists followed), and set an precedence for many movies to come. Given these background facts I am willing to add +1 points to my initial rating which would have been 6 points, totaling in 7/10. Definitely worth seeing if you are interested in movie history.

Just wasn't feeling the drama in this one.

Great little revenge horror. Obviously more effective if you're bothered by rats. But it's still a great look at this oddball character. Kinda like Psycho with vermin.