GRAVEYARD RATS

"The Graveyard Rats" is a horror short story by American writer Henry Kuttner, first published in the magazine Weird Tales in March 1936. It was reprinted in The Gruesome Book (1983), edited by Ramsey Campbell; and Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror (1997). "The Graveyard Rats" was adapted as part of the made-for-cable anthology film Trilogy of Terror II. In 2022, the story was also adapted as an episode, directed by Vincenzo Natali, of Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities.

This is a pretty classic story I have seen adaptations of before, but Vincenzo Natali's direction and Del Toro's classic gore make this worth your time. David Hewlett gives a great performance as this episode's leading man, a charmingly meek and extremely desperate grave robber. The characters and setting both feel like Sweeny Todd's London in the best way possible, and the fantasy elements mix well with the often EVIL DEAD II feeling black comedy of errors. It starts out as a classic gothic horror story and ends up being something closer to the immortal classic THE DESCENT with its creature feature cave crawl. This cave segment is just as familiar and welcoming a setting as a foggy old London town, and it's a damn miracle to see horror like this with such production value and talent behind it all.

As a whole, it's a wonderful little micro-monster movie that feels at home as one of the gems in this series crown.

Its exactly what i wanted it to be.

10/10