Editorials
The 10 Scariest Rats in Video Games
Rats are everywhere—in alleyways, in basements, in yards, in history, in literature, in cinema, and in video games. Sometimes they are cute, other times they a gross, and usually, they are oddly menacing and scary, even. But, in popular media and at certain points in history (The Black Plague, mainly), rats have been known and portrayed as highways for carrying disease, and that makes them scary in an all-too-real sense. Rats can also be fantastical! Look at any modern RPG and there is a 75% chance that your low-level combat encounters will be with mid-to-giant sized rats. Hell, they can even act as boss-level encounters and sometimes, I’m looking at you Warhammer, humanoid rats are a race all their own. Some media engages with this while other media chooses to play up the fun, gross, and/or scare-factor of fictional rats. Here, we are acutely concerned with the scare-factor of rats, and that is why we have trudged into dangerous territory and come away with the 10 scariest rats in all of video games.
10. Splinter’s Voice from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Splinter Speaks (Handheld)
Splinter, the humanoid rat sensei, is a staple in the fictional world that the Ninja Turtles inhabit. He is both a father figure and a coach, dispelling sage wisdom and kung fu moves in equal measure. Yet, there is something so unsettling about his brief portrayal in TMNT 2: Splinter Speaks. You don’t ever see him, but we all know what Splinter looks like: an old rat man who has lived in the sewer for far too long and is somewhat of a down-on-his-luck Obi-Wan Kenobi. But just hearing Splinter’s words of wisdom through a rickety little speaker in a crummy handheld console affords him an unknowability that is downright terrifying, and the poor audio highlights the fact that maybe the spirit of some dark-side possessed version of Splinter resides within the handheld system, itself. Talking rats, turns out they’re scary!
9. The Neeks from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest
Oh, the Neeks. These filthy little rat-like creatures are the first annoyance Diddy runs into during the opening stages in Donkey Kong Country 2, and they can be a true pain if one does not know how to properly deal with them. The player must jump on them or roll into them in order to kill (hurt?) them. But what is so scary about them is not the danger they pose because there are far worse enemies in Donkey Kong Country 2—I’m looking at you, Metallic Bees. In fact, what sends shivers up my spine whenever I think of the Neeks is the duality of their nature. At face value they are cute little rats that look squeaky clean, and the noises they make are neither menacing or annoying. Yet, they’ll end poor Diddy or Dixie’s life if given the opportunity. There is nothing scarier than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Et tu, Neek?
8. Twitch from League of Legends
Twitch is a character in League of Legends that is, quite literally, a giant crossbow-wielding rat. Sounds scary, right? Well, it only gets worse from here. His weapon does toxic damage and his ability to spread disease and wreak havoc on an enemy team has to be seen to be believed—especially if he is left unchecked. Furthermore, his character design is genuinely creepy for a video game that has usually cartoonish designs. He is still cartoonish and his proportions are wonky, but his eyes are…horrifying. Just imagining seeing his beady eyes illuminated in a dark alleyway is a thought that will keep me up at night. Plus, he has the ability to turn invisible.
7. Everything from Bad Rats: the Rat’s Revenge
Bad Rats: the Rat’s Revenge is one of the most infamously bad games to ever grace the Steam storefront, and that is truly saying something. Yes, part of the fear of the rats from Bad Rats stems from how impossible it is to enjoy playing Bad Rats, but also, the weird and poorly animated rats are just scary. Plus, their whole goal is to enact revenge on the cats of the world, and nobody wants that! Seeing a cheap-cartoon-from-the-late-1990s-like rat attempt to bash in an equally wonky looking cat’s skull with a baseball bat is a nightmarish fever dream that nobody should ever have to lay their eyes upon.
6. Larry from Rampage (Atari Lynx Version Only)
Larry is a rat that could go one-on-one with Godzilla. What is not scary about that? Well, Larry—like all of the monsters in Rampage—was once a man. Larry was a cashier who ate some tainted creamed spinach on a dare, and then he grew a tail. One thing follows another, and Larry became a giant rat kaiju who happens to have a keen hankering for cheese. Larry is a big bipedal rat and, while the arcade graphics do little to highlight his ferocity and scare-factor, seeing what he can do to the city in Rampage is scary on a level that is rarely equated to rats. He levels buildings, destroys anything in his path, and kills A LOT of civilians (this is never stated or shown because, well, videogames just did not show that at the time). Furthermore, he fights off an entire army in and around the city. Such unbridled power and colossal ferocity in rat form is something that must be feared, and Larry’s actions earn that fear many times over.
5. The Rat Guards from Ghost of a Tale
Ghost of a Tale is an odd little videogame that pulls as much influence from Kate DiCamillo’s book The Tale of Despereaux as it does from grounded and grimdark fantasy. In Ghost of a Tale, the player controls a cute little mouse whose sole intent is to escape from the evil rats that have infested the lands. These rats are big, they wear armor, and they will kill anyone unlike them at the drop of a hat. The stealth-focused gameplay heightens the sheer scare-factor of these rat guards, and their tenacity and violent intent just seals the deal. Their AI design adds to their menace, as they are smart and inquisitive. The fact that they are both bloodthirsty, crafty, and self-aware is a horror unto itself. And to make things worse, there are rat guards who are nothing more than reanimated skeletons who shamble and kill with an all-too-alive ferocity.
4. All Types of Rats from Dark Souls Series
In the Dark Souls series, there are rats of various sizes and lethality—from small sewer-dwelling annoyances to larger mini-boss-like rats that take both wit and determination to fell. There is one thing that binds all of the rats in Dark Souls together; they are gross, they make terrifying sounds, and their warped nature is deeply unsettling. Yet, the most disturbing rendition of rat-like creatures in the Dark Souls series has to be the Royal Rat Vanguard from the first entry. Located in The Gutter, the Royal Rat Vanguard are a different form of scary because, rather than one isolated rat, they are multiple larger-than-reality rats that act and attack as an inconsolable swarm. Their dark and matted mass ebbs and flows with murderous intent, as various gaping maws chitter and snap with deadly intent. These rats take the rat-swarms of the Dark Ages, and animates them with both size, sentience, and deadly intent. They can easily swarm, poison, and kill the player if one is not careful enough, and treading with care seems all but impossible as endless swarms of the Royal Rat Vanguard see the player as their nexus of pointed ferocity. While they may not seem scary when one of these rats is corned and alone, they are ferociously nightmarish when confronted as a group.
3. The Rats from Dishonored
The rats from the first Dishonored video game are both a familiar and unfamiliar foe, from the lens of realism. On the one hand, the rat plague they carry is analogous to that of the bubonic plague—except for the whole zombie schtick. But on the other hand, the rats in Dishonored are carnivorous creatures that are quite simply a land-dwelling version of the piranha fish. Flesh is their desire and flesh they shall get. They move in swarms and their black mass floats from corpse to corpse stripping flesh and sinew from decaying and broken bones. The terror that comes with watching these little monsters in action is second only to the macabre thrill of harnessing their deadly ways for one’s own intent. Yes, they are scary but they can also be weaponized. The player can use dead bodies to lure rats to live enemies and players can even conjure up a swarm of rats when using the aptly named “Devouring Swarm” power. It is grisly, over-the-top, and devilishly satisfying. Despite the ability to control swarms of these deadly rats, there is still an unwieldy madness and fear that is inspired by every sound and move the rat swarms make.
2. The Skaven from Warhammer: Vermintide 2
The Skaven are a famous fictional race from the worlds of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar—they are humanoid rats who worship the Horned Rat. They are sometimes called the Children of the Horned Rat which brings to mind the fantastic classic PC game Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat. The Skaven vary in size from human-sized fighters to larger than life monsters, and they have eclectic weaponry to boot. The Warhammer world is a hellish and grimdark place where life is constant misery, and the Skaven really highlight this. They love to kill, ransack, and bring instability wherever they go, but a lot of videogames have never really let the player get up close to the Skaven. Enter the Vermintide series—developed by Fat Shark, the Vermintide series is a Left 4 Dead horde-style videogame where players have to fight wave after wave of ever-hardening Skaven enemies. They are portrayed as disgusting, feral, and fiendish beasts that skitter and move with an unsettling unpredictability. Furthermore, they will kill the player at the drop of a hat, and their designs are disgusting. When traveling in a horde, the chorus of hellish sounds that they make is enough to frighten even the most hardened horde-based videogame player. Plus, Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is incredibly gory, as Skaven hack and rip through flesh with boundless ferocity, and the player matches them blow for blow. Skaven heads will roll.
1. The Rat Hordes from A Plague Tale: Innocence
The year is 1348. The bubonic plague is in full swing, and The Inquisition’s reign of terror is still spreading. Enter two children. That, in the vaguest of nutshells, is A Plague Tale: Innocence. This video game is a journey of survival and confronting horror(s) that just so happen to be seen through the eyes of two children. Grounded in a magical reality that chooses to embellish the truth rather than stick to the facts, the plague rats in the videogame are, in turn, bombastic and over-the-top in their swarm-like portrayal. Yet, the somewhat realistic grounding and the fact that the player views this world through the eyes of a largely helpless teen makes the rats in A Plague Tale: Innocence all the more terrifying. These rats move in voracious swarms and burst from sewers and aqueducts, and they also move across battlefields that are littered with leaking, rotting, and bloated corpses—the rats must eat, after all. They spread their disease and in turn inspire fear, and the human threat of The Inquisition preys on that fear. The rats are horrifying, but they act as a stepping stone for the most dangerous and scary beasts of all—human beings.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
You must be logged in to post a comment.