I had seen the 2003 remake of 'Willard' with Crispin Glover, which I recall being rather dark, but had never seen the 1971 original. This is also my first return to this storyline since roughly 2004. Both films are based on the 1968 novel 'Ratman's Notebooks' by Stephen Gilbert, who interestingly lived to be only about a month shy of his 98th birthday.
Produced by Bing Crosby Productions of all things, the movie has the brightish color palate I associate with late 60's early 70's television, especially the works of producer David Gerber. It's directed by Daniel Mann like it is a period television show, pretty uninspired for such an unusual story, this weighs the film down, it often feels like it's just wandering without focus.
'Willard' of course is the story of an awkward man who controls a bunch of rats, he feeds them, considerers himself good friends with a couple of them, and they'll even do things he tells them to. The movie is in effect a mildly interesting character piece crossed with a horror picture, there are moments but it's never entirely effective as either. I recall in the remake feeling pretty sympathetic to Glover, but in this film Bruce Davison does sometimes come off as a bad, lazy employ and not a great son. Now they pull punches on this towards the end, but the movie would have been more interesting if they hadn't.
Film contains more then a fair bit of camp in the supporting roles, Ernest Borgnine and Elsa Lanchester, Sandra Locke is quite winning however. To my surprise this movie does not contain the early Michael Jackson song "Ben", that must be in the sequel that came out the next year, also called 'Ben'. **1/2
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