Waste of Money.

The Worst Film Ever

Good concept, poorly executed.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Phil Karlson directed this immediate sequel to "Willard" that picks up where that film ended, with the police at Willard's house, and Ben the rat leading his army of rats through the city, raiding supermarkets and causing general havoc, eventually finding refuge in the city sewers. In the meantime, a sickly and lonely boy named Danny(played by Lee Montgomery) befriends Ben, and they become loyal friends, even though the rat army are being mercilessly pursued by authorities, and his family does not understand, forcing a showdown in the sewers, with flamethrowers, as many more people are killed... Faithful sequel even has a logical(for this premise) plot and a most touching performance by Montgomery, and famous title song by Michael Jackson. Though slightly marred by too many scenes of rat attacks and violence, (mostly due to a lack of directorial imagination) this is still an effective, memorable sequel that makes a watchable double feature with the first. Sadly, there was no part III...

This is the fondly remembered sequel to WILLARD from the previous year . I say fondly remembered because anyone who saw it late night on ITV sometime round about 1981 seems to have it burned in to their memory . The unfortunate thing is perhaps BEN is better remembered for the title song at the end and even then it's probably got more to do with the singer Michael Jackson . If it wasn't for the song would it be so remembered ? For a sequel it's relatively self contained , so much so you'd probably have little idea that this was a sequel to another film . You can compliment BEN that it dispenses with WILLARD and is a film in its own right that stands up on its own hind legs but the original featuring Bruce Davison was more character driven . Here in BEN the producers treat it almost as a straight out horror movie capitalizing on peoples fear of rodent vermin . It's moderately successful in what it does but there's a major spanner in the works - a little kid One wishes the producers had maybe gone that extra yard and dispensed with a boy and his pet rat premise and just concentrated on rats on a rampage against mankind . Every time young Danny appears on screen and starts composing love songs to Ben the rat you're instantly taken out of the movie thinking you're watching a mawkish children's film from the Disney studio . It also leads to a ridiculous plot hole and hat is how would Danny know his rat is called Ben ? Willard Stiles from the previous film never broadcast the fact that he trained rats and strangely Danny knows the leader of the rat pack is called Ben ? I don't know about rats but there's something fishy about this

Michael Jackson's title theme is a moving ode and that it applies to a deadly pet rat makes for an odd, if memorable association in this sequel to the hugely successful "Willard" the year before. Youth Lee H.Montgomery is the new "Willard", essentially imprisoned in his parent's home by a rare medical condition, finding a quirky friendship in a stray rat (Ben) who is capable of marshaling the local rat population into war against mankind.Joseph Campanella is the no-nonsense police detective, while Meredith Baxter (pre David Birney) plays Lee's older sister. There are a number of familiar faces in the supporting cast (e.g. Paul Carr, Kaz Garas, Ken Tobey etc) and the film's rousing conclusion in the city's sewers with the main antagonist cornered, is a tense climax.The hyperbole written about this film relegating it to turkey status is unwarranted; while not as textured as its predecessor, it's much like the AIP genre films of the early-to-mid seventies in atmosphere and personnel and should entertain accordingly.

This is the story of a lonely boy and his rat. I cried like a baby at the end when the Micheal Jackson version of this song started playing. Part of that could be due to the weird resonance having a young M.J. singing the song lends to this film. He was also a greatly misunderstood soul. This really is an odd little story, Ben is not painted as evil, just needing to find a place for his humongous family. There are many humorous scenes in this, such as women in towels running out of a health spa from rats (why? the rats don't care that you're in a state of undress)! Seeing a young Meredith Baxter stumbling along and losing her glasses in a filthy sewer is fun too. There is much inadvertent hilarity to be gained from watching this too, such as six foot tall grown men apparently succumbing to maybe six rats climbing on them and dying for no apparent reason.Let's not forget the scene with the detective commenting on the whacked out truck driver "I've seen people like this before, up in (somewhere in the U.S. mid-west) after pulling dead bodies out of a mine". WTF! Not to mention a rat being able to both read and understand the word "pesticide" written on a cheery yellow box! There's also rats unscrewing air-vents and riding on toy trains!"Ben" has some serious pacing issues. The mini-recap at the beginning of Ben over-seeing Willard's death, was OK, but it's nearly a half hour into the film when Ben and Danny become friends, and the time in-between is interminably long. Danny and Ben seem to have been friends for about two days when the former writes "Ben's song". Quite rushed! Most of the middle is fairly good, even though things like the puppet show and Danny composing Ben's song drag a bit. Then at the end it just seems to go on forever. The last twenty minutes of this film, which felt like an eternity, is a horrible affair of flame throwers and the squeals of countless rats! The rats are so cute, especially Ben, that is is truly a gut-wrenching thing to watch.There are very nice portraits of relationships here, especially Danny and his family, and Danny and Ben, which made the characters seem real enough to get me emotionally invested. The story of their friendship is truly beautiful. In closing, this is not a go-to horror movie. It's not exactly a horror movie, though it mostly is in tone, and it's not exactly a drama either. This is a good movie for when you don't feel like you have a true friend in the world. Even Ben got a friend who loved him enough to risk his life, though he was a monster to everyone else.