Load of rubbish!!

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Peter Weller makes enough money at his snooty office job to buy a brownstone in New York City, refurbish it, and then furbish it, all on his own. It's beautiful. It's exactly the way he wanted it, except for one thing -- a rat the size of a Scottish wildcat that drives him crazy with its catabolic antics. The reason for its existence, or even the existence itself, is a puzzle that may be called Schroedinger's rat.The beastly thing begins by chewing through the electrical cables and ends up by making a meal of some urgent work Weller has prepared for his job. The maintenance man gives Weller the lowdown on rats. They're cannibals, they bring plague and other diseases, they attack people's genitals, and can chew through a steel I beam. Weller uses mouse traps but the rat outwits him. This rat, by the way, has the IQ of a human being but a psychopathic one.The entire movie is a story of mano a mano combat between Weller and rat. The monster rat can drop or jump to the attack at any time, from any place. Weller is obsessed by his battle with the animal. Its noises keep him awake at night. He loses sleep and dozes off or daydreams at work, endangering his job. (His sympathetic but pragmatic boss is Lawrence Dane, who delivers a fine performance of which the film is unworthy.) The story becomes almost tragic as Weller isolates himself from friends and colleagues who would like to help him. They do what they can even though Weller has never told them that he's having a problem with a mutant rat. He becomes Howard Hughes. He refuses to answer the door or the phone and when an empathic woman from the office shouts to him from the sidewalk, we hear only hear his voice calling down distantly from an upper story, "Leave me alone." Weller's increasing estrangement is the best part of the film because the rest of the story is so ill handled, never missing a cliché. Thus, we hear scuttling noises in the ceiling and the camera takes the rat's point of view as it rushes through pipes and shafts. The musical score is pedestrian. Several shocking scenes presented as real are revealed as Weller's daydreams. The scenes of man/rat combat aren't convincing because there were no CGI's yet, so all we see is Weller screaming and demolishing his house with a weird studded weapon fashioned around a baseball bat. The happy ending comes out of nowhere and leaves all sorts of plot threads dangling. Weller's acting is up to par. His character is credible. We can easily identify with him, except for those moments when he's shrieking and being attacked by a damned rodent.

"Of Unknown Origin" is an interesting item on the resume of the late director George P. Cosmatos. Better known for features such as "Rambo: First Blood Part II", "Cobra", and "Tombstone", he directs this man vs. nature thriller with a sure hand, creating some genuine suspense and some harrowing and disturbing moments. The animal action is first rate, and the shocks done with consummate skill (there's a wonderful jolt involving a toilet). The movie is pretty obvious about its themes - a man running the rat race at work must fight an actual monster rat at home, and must get in touch with his most primitive instincts - but that doesn't mean that they don't still work.The man in question is Wall Street yuppie Bart Hughes (Peter Weller, in his first lead role), who's temporarily left on his own after his wife Meg (scorching hot Shannon Tweed, in the role that officially "introduced" her) and son Peter (Leif Anderson) spend some time with Barts' in-laws. Bart has some important business to attend to at work, but he ends up distracted by the war he must wage with this infernal rodent that's threatening the peacefulness of his exquisitely refurbished brownstone. Just as there are co-workers (played by Kenneth Welsh and Maury Chaykin) who would like to see him take a fall, he's often undermined by the utter craftiness of this beast, who often proves to be a step ahead of him.The movie has a great look, with slick cinematography by Rene Verzier, and it also has an effective music score by Ken Wannberg. Weller is terrific in the lead, and is believable through the characters' whole arc. The exemplary supporting cast consists of such top notch Canadian character actors as Lawrence Dane, Welsh, Louis Del Grande (the guy whose head blew up REAL good in "Scanners"), Keith Knight, Chaykin, and Earl Pennington. Tweed supplies some delectable eye candy early on in a shower scene. Stephan Dupuis handles the makeup effects. The finale, when it comes down to a physical battle between human and rodent, is rousing stuff, with Weller carrying around one very MEAN looking custom made weapon.This is a good little story that does merit another look from dedicated genre fans.Eight out of 10.

I gave this dandy nail-biter (no pun intended) nine stars as it is one of those movies that when found and decide to watch it I accepted the fact that it most likely is a low-budget waste of time. And most likely would bore me to sleep. I mean, really...What can anyone expect from a movie that only cost around 4 million to make. About ten or fifteen minutes into the flick it became obvious I would watch this one all the way to the ending roll of the credits.The acting is good, especially for this kind of movie. The camera shots and angles raise this movie up from the gutter and into the attic, a dark attic. Which this creepy old brown-stone building no doubt has.Never mind the nail clippers. The suspense in this thriller will keep your teeth gnawing on 'em just like a rat chewing on a lead pipe.If you are looking for an above average thriller I highly recommend, "Of Unknown Origin".Enjoy :0)

You know that one guy who'd do anything to get you fired, destroy your house, alienate you from your friends and family, chew through your surge protector? You know, the usual. Well, imagine if that guy was a poodle-sized sewer rat.I wondered going into this movie why Peter Weller would agree to star in what is essentially the rat-equivalent of Jaws: The Revenge. I got my answer about twenty seconds into the film, where it opens on a shot of Shannon Tweed, playing Weller's wife here, showering. Umm, okay.She leaves, along with Weller's extremely dimwitted kid to stay at a hotel (only to pop up later in the movie scantily-clad back in her hotel or in a dream sequence in order to meet some strange 80s boob quota I suppose).Weller is doing fine by himself, (staying behind to finish some work), until the dishwasher overflows, eventually upsetting a rat who decides to move into his apartment. Its hard to gauge just how big this thing is supposed to be until it decides to crawl up under the covers in Weller's bed later, apparently he's the size of a tomcat.Weller does his best to get rid of the rat, upgrading from normal rat traps to (what are basically) miniature bear traps. When the medieval rat traps don't work or come back gnawed on he decides to get a cat, which also comes back gnawed on (or replaced with a cheap stuffed animal that resembles his cat). When he decides to ignore the rat he chews on on his surge protector, fuse box, and therein cutting off the power.Weller runs around the house, bashing holes into walls in search of the rat, is plagued by nightmares of birthday parties where the giant rat jumps out of a sheet cake (?), and where his dimwitted kid ends up mixing in various rat poisons in with his cereal. The finale brought to mind Arachnophobia as it ended in a dank basement; the film ending maybe twelve seconds after the rat's been dispatched as Weller brushes himself off as if the last two hours hadn't just happened just in time to greet his wife and kid at the front door. I'm sure they won't notice the completely demolished apartment.