#killer rats

Rats: Night of Terror (1984)

A movie in the criminally-underserved microgenre of post-apocalyptic horror. A gang of leather-clad motorcycle-riding scavengers find a facility full of food and water... and killer rats! Neither the setting nor the concept is particularly unique, but putting them together makes for something more fun than its component parts. The story and effects aren't always the best, but that's just part of the fun. However, you do get the impression that some animals were definitely harmed in the making of this film.

Last week I decided to watch some horror movies in order of

1.the gate

2.killer rats

3.c.h.u.d.

4.pulse (kairo)

5.twilight zone the movie

6.blood on Satan's claw

7.pumpkinhead

8.jason x

9.pathology

10.beyond the black rainbow

Many people have heard of Dmitri Belyaev’s domestication experiments with foxes. What most don’t know is that he simultaneously breed a strain of foxes for aggression. Or that he also did the same experiments with two separate strains of rats.

All the rats were descended from wild-caught vermin in Siberia; they’re standard-issue brown rats, the same kind that infest most cities. But he split them into two strains: one in which only 30 percent of each generation were allowed to breed. For one line, the “tame” one, he selected the friendliest 30 percent. For the other, he selected the most aggressive, vicious rats.

After 73 generations of rats bred for viciousness, this is the result. National Geographic photographer Vincent J. only had to take these critters’ picture to cause this enraged, screeching response.

From New Scientist:

In 2003, geneticist Svante Pääbo visited Novosibirsk and the experiment. He was stunned by the vast changes in the animals’ behaviour and how quickly these had been induced.

The rats bred for tameness were incredibly easy to handle, while the aggressive ones were so prone to scream and bite that Pääbo said: “I got the feeling that 10 or 20 of them would probably kill me if they got out of the cages.”

From the New York Times:

Frank Albert, a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, is working with both the tame and the hyperaggressive Siberian strains in the hope of understanding the genetic basis of their behavioral differences.

“The ferocious rats cannot be handled,” Mr. Albert said. “They will not tolerate it. They go totally crazy if you try to pick them up.”

When the aggressive rats have to be moved, Mr. Albert places two cages side by side with the doors open and lets the rats change cages by themselves. He is taking care that they do not escape to the sewers of Leipzig, he said.