Mulberry Street (After Dark Horrorfest 2007 Review)

Plot
A deadly infection breaks out in Manhattan, causing humans to devolve into blood-thirsty rat creatures. Six recently evicted tenants must survive the night and protect their downtown apartment building as the city quickly spirals out of control.

Jason's Thoughts
Mulberry Street was a nice surprise and has been the best of the three 2007 After Dark Horrorfest movies that I have seen thus far.  It really has that new-age fast zombie feel to it, something along the lines of 28 Days Later, but instead of traditional zombies, it is a breed of rabid rat people.  

The movie focuses on an low rent apartment complex and the people inside of it.  The tenants will soon all be evicted due to the property being sold to a development company, but before that happens, a rat infestation occurs in and around the city that is causing a deadly virus to spread turning people into human rats.  Rat people that look oddly similar to Nosferatu from the 1922 silent film classic.

For a horror movie, Mulberry Street does do a great job developing the central characters in the movie.  Time is taken to give each of the tenants a personality and the whole building has a sense of community.  It seems that most movies like this include characters for the sole purpose of killing them off, and while some of the do die, they are not just used as fodder for the rats to eat.  Speaking of which, the gore is also done very well.

The one aspect that I felt was lacking was the back story to the rat infestation and the cause of the virus.  I may have missed it, but I do not remember seeing or hearing anything about why the rats were spreading the virus.  It almost seemed like it came from nowhere.  The ending was also murky as well and was left open for people to draw their own conclusion as to why and what just happened.  

If these two aspects were a little tighter, this could have made this nice surprise of a movie even better.  Mulberry Street wasn't quite as good as 28 Days Later, but it did a fine job considering the tiny budget it had to work with.

Comments

No comments have been posted.