Bram Stoker's Burial of the Rats
| Bram Stoker's Burial of the Rats | |
|---|---|
1995 theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Dan Golden |
| Written by | Bram Stoker S. P. Somtow |
| Based on | "The Burial of the Rats" by Bram Stoker |
| Produced by | Roger Corman |
| Starring | Adrienne Barbeau |
| Cinematography | Vladimir Klimov |
| Edited by | John Gilbert, Lorne Morris |
| Music by | Eduard Artemyev |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Concorde Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 78 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2 million |
| Box office | Direct-to-cable |
Bram Stoker's Burial of the Rats is a 1995 American TV film made for Showtime. It was part of a series Roger Corman Presents.[1][2] The film was shot in Russia.
The film is loosely based on Bram Stoker's 1896 short story "The Burial of the Rats" which is about an English traveler in Paris who is attacked and chased by a group of rag-pickers in the outskirts of the city. The "rat burial" refers to the feral swarms of rats that eat the flesh of corpses down to the bone.
A comic book version of the story was released by Cosmic Comics.[3] The comic book story was by Jerry Prosser, Francisco Solano Lopez and Val Mayerik.
Plot
Bram Stoker, played by Kevin Alber, is kidnapped by mysterious women on his visit to Paris. He kills an attacker in order to save his father. He is seized by a cult of "Rat Women" under the command of a Queen who is played by Adrienne Barbeau. The Queen tells them: "Let us affirm this truth - we are all vermin in the ratholes of the universe." He is sentenced to "burial of the rats", to be eaten alive by packs of ravenous rats. He receives a reprieve from the death sentence. But then he has to flee, forcing him on a flight for survival and escape.
Cast
- Adrienne Barbeau as The Queen
- Maria Ford as Madeleine
- Kevin Alber as Bram Stoker
- Olga Kabo as Anna
- Eduard Plaxin as Mr. Stoker
- Vladimir Kuleshov as Constable
- Leonid Timtsunik as Verlaine
- Maya Menglet as Mme. Renaud
Production
Filming took place in Moscow. Adrienne Barbeau later said "we landed on the night of the attempted coup and they declared martial law...and I wasn't sure I was ever going to see my family again. I really took the job because they were filming in Moscow and I wanted to go there. I had never been and I'd always wanted to go."[4]
She later recalled, "I was also supposed to be working with 50 trained rats, but there were only 16 and I think eight of them were dead. The rest had only been trained to eat anything that smelled like fish. So every time I'd do a scene where the rats had had to swarm all over me, they took fish eggs and squeezed the juice all over my body."[5]
References
- ^ King, Susan (July 9, 1995). "ROGER CORMAN Master of His Cult". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest 293121577.
- ^ ""Yikes! Roger Corman Is Back, Still" by William Grimes". New York Times. July 9, 1995.
- ^ "Interview: Roger Corman". Cult Films. March 19, 2013.
- ^ "Interview with Adrienne Barbeau". The Terror Trap.
- ^ Davis, Chris (November 12, 2015). "Adrienne Barbeau Talks About Horror, 70's TV, Learning to Write and Her Role in "Pippin"". Memphis Flyer.
External links
- Burial of the Rats at IMDb
- Burial of the Rats at the British Film Institute
- Burial of the Rats. moviemeter.com.
- Burial of the Rats at Letterboxd
- Burial of the Rats film review at the Spinning Image