DEADLY EYES (1982), aka NIGHT EYES

Director: Robert Clouse

Writers: Lonon Smith, Charles Eglee, adapted from the novel The Rats by James Herbert

Producers: Paul Kahnert, Andre Morgan, Charles Eglee

Cast: Sam Groom, Sara Botsford, Scatman Crothers, Cec Linder, Lisa Langlois, Lesleh Donaldson, Joseph Kelly, Lee-Max Walton, James B. Douglas, Jon Wise, Kevin Foxx, Wendy Bushell, Dora Dainton, Michael Fawkes, George Merner, Charles Jolliffe, Michael Mark McManus, Roger Dunn, Jaime Hyland, Michael Hogan, Jack Van Evera, Bridget O’Sullivan, David Cardoza, Bunty Webb, Guy Sanvido, Paul MacCallum, Til Hanson, David Hughes, Steven Fearnley, Tod Woodcraft, John Stephen Hill, Sandy Grant, Lorraine Housego, Suzanne Housego, Mary Anne Ziewkiewicz, Bruce O.R. Marshall, Brian P. Morrison, Kevin Sheard, George Hollo (uncredited) 

Toronto city health inspector Kelly Leonard (Sara Botsford) orders a shipment of contaminated corn to be burned. The feed is infested with rats and has been treated with an illegal steroid. That steroid has mutated the rats to become huge and vicious. The rats flee the burning feed to infest the city and begin feeding on humans. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

Deadly Eyes is a holdover of the nature attacks movies of the '70s. It is supposed to be based on the 1974 debut novel The Rats by the prolific British horror author James Herbert. Aside from the idea of a plague of large, man-eating rats, this film has almost nothing to do with its prose source.

Initially, I had a rather lukewarm reception to this film. There were not any real pressing character conflicts to be resolved or to complicate the situation. You are left with the gimmick of big rats infesting a big city and attacking people. That can only generate so much interest and variety before it can become a bit monotonous. Like many monster movies, the interest lies in how will the menace be identified and then dealt with. 

After further years of contemplation and spiritual growth, I have discerned the divine value contained in the film Deadly Eyes: Sara Botsford! As health inspector Kelly Leonard, she’s smart, beautiful, cool under pressure, has a good sense of humor and initiative. If she likes what she sees, she grabs that phone to make a mating call. 

Our other hero, divorced high school teacher and basketball coach Paul Harris (Sam Groom), is the lucky stiff (and that’s one expression you don’t have to pardon) that accidentally bumps into our ravishing redhead twice in a couple of days. Then Kelly looks up Harris’ name in the phonebook (things were so much simpler then) and calls the guy up for a date. Before the evening is over, we see that Harris can score with more than his jump shot. 

Kelly Leonard is so cool under pressure that, even when menaced by man-eating rats, she never screams. Even when being reprimanded by her sexist boss (James B. Douglas), she does not lose her composure. She even takes it all in stride when she stops by Harris’ pad the day after their first date to see a cute teenager (Lisa Langlois) exit the bedroom with Harris wearing only his bath towel. Harris says he can explain, but Kelly shrugs it off and drives away with Harris’ five-year-old son (Lee-Max Walton) while Harris is getting dressed. Okay, I guess Kelly Leonard may be cool under pressure, but she can also scare the living shit out of someone. 

Some people may complain that this relationship stuff is filler. I like it. Many movies do this, and it was a staple of the '50s sci-fi flicks. I find the relationship beginning between Kelly Leonard and Paul Harris to be pleasant enough without trying to be a big dramatic subplot. These are two likable and believable characters, and that should make us care whether or not they survive. Also, Paul Harris’ incredible good luck hooking up with Kelly Leonard has me green with envy. Dancing the horizontal tango with her looks like a helluva lot more fun than writing movie reviews. 

Deadly Eyes has developed a bad movie reputation almost solely due to its rather ingenious special effects solution for creating its giant rats. It just sounds so cute and outlandish that once a person knows how it was done, they may not be able to think past it. In all fairness, I think the rat creatures are well done. CGI techniques of today would probably multiply the amount of rats and have them performing absurdly extravagant antics, instead of just being a scurrying pack of beasts jumping on people and chewing them up. That is probably about all that man-eating rats would actually do. 

By the way, did I mention that this movie also has Sara Botsford in it? Well, it does, so this flick makes the grade with me. 

Director Robert Clouse is at his best, and the film is at its nastiest, during the kid in the high chair scene. Clouse had made an earlier animals-attack-man movie called The Pack (1977). He specialized in the action film genre and is best known for directing the most famous Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon (1973). He also directed Lee’s final film Game of Death (1978), which was completed and released after Lee’s sudden death. That is the film showing at a movie theater during one of the more memorable scenes in Deadly Eyes. 

Like Day of the Animals (1977), Kingdom of the Spiders (1977), and Prophecy (1979), man is responsible for the creatures in Deadly Eyes becoming a menace. Atomic radiation was being replaced by man-made environmental contaminants as the handy story springboard that could launch all sorts of beasties to pounce on mankind. Unlike the can-do '50s sci-fi flicks, these more recent films assert that if man’s folly got us into this mess, then even his ingenuity may not get us out of it. That is a lesson many of us still do not heed.