YMMV / Ratman's Notebooks

---

• Adaptation Displacement: The original book was overshadowed by 1971 version of Willard, which was in turn overshadowed by its 2003 remake
• Awesome Music:
  • Crispin Glover singing Ben during the end credits to the 2003 movie. Oh, and for good measure, he is accompanied by an accordion.
  • The score of the 2003 movie is wonderfully creepy and catchy fright film music, composed by Shirley Walker of Batman: The Animated Series fame.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The scene in the 2003 movie where Cathryn gives Scully to Willard. The alternate ending suggests that Scully's scene was originally supposed to parallel Willard's final scene (overpowered by something that's supposed to be weaker than them) but since that ending was changed, Scully's scene was done to needlessly emphasise the growing power and threat from the colony.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Meredith Baxter and Crispin Glover being cast in the movies (she was Eve in Ben; he was Willard in the 2003 version) applies, considering that both have not only worked with Michael J. Fox, but did so in Fox's most iconic and well-known projects: Family Ties and Back to the Future.
  • Also, Michael Jackson recording "Ben"... when he had pet rats of his own.
• Jerkass Woobie: Miss Leech from the 2003 movie.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Both the emotionally unstable Willard and even his killer rat Ben are more likeable than his boss Mr. Martin (named Mr. Jones in the novel).
• Love to Hate: R. Lee Ermey as Mr. Martin. He's a bastard whose only purpose in the movie is to make Willard as miserable as possible, but he channels his role as Gunnery Sgt. Hartman on a few occasions.
  Frank Martin: (while storming to his office) You're a slimy, pukey piece of shit! You wouldn't make a pimple on my grandmother's tush!
• Moral Event Horizon: Ratman approaches the final line several times before he finally crosses it with murder.
  • To the rats, he crosses it when he systematically traps and drowns all the females and pups that'd stayed behind when he took the rest to his workplace to kill Jones.
• Tear Jerker: Crispin Glover's entire performance in the 2003 movie, at least when he's not Adorkable or doing something nasty. To name a few examples, his breakdowns at his mother's funeral, and when Frank Martin fires him. Also, his reaction to the death of Socrates shortly after he was fired.
  • Socrates' death is this trope, made worse by the fact that he was the most good-natured of the rats, so naturally he had to go.
  • The death of Scully, also from the 2003 movie, is both this and Nightmare Fuel, doubly so if you just happen to be a cat owner. Poor thing was just at the wrong, worst possible place for her to be, and all because Catherine wanted Willard to not be alone after his mother's death...
• The Woobie: Ratman but more so in the movies than in the book. Crispin Glover's take in particular. His fall into madness is really something to see, and his woobieness is just something that he alone could pull off.

---