Willard (2003 film)

Willard
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Glen Morgan
Screenplay by	Glen Morgan
Based on	Ratman's Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert and Willard by Gilbert Ralston
Starring	Crispin Glover Laura Elena Harring Jackie Burroughs R. Lee Ermey
Cinematography	Robert McLachlan
Edited by	James Coblentz
Music by	Shirley Walker
Production company	Hard Eight Pictures
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	March 14, 2003 (2003-03-14)
Running time	100 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$8.5 million

Willard is a 2003 American horror film co-written and directed by Glen Morgan and starring Crispin Glover, R. Lee Ermey and Laura Elena Harring. It is loosely based on the novel Ratman's Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert, as well as on the novel's first film adaptation, Willard (1971), and its sequel, Ben (1972). It was not billed as a remake by the producers, who chose instead to present it as a reworking of the themes from the original with a stronger focus on suspense.

Plot

Willard Stiles (Crispin Glover) is a social misfit taking care of his ill and fragile, but verbally abusive, mother Henrietta (Jackie Burroughs) in a musty old mansion that is also home to a colony of rats. Willard finds himself constantly humiliated in front of his co-workers by his cruel boss, Frank Martin (R. Lee Ermey), a vicious man who assumed control of the Stiles family company after the suicide of Willard's father. Martin mercilessly taunts Willard, though a contract written by Willard's father stipulates that he cannot be fired. Willard's co-worker Cathryn (Laura Elena Harring) sympathizes for the way he is ill-treated. After failing to exterminate the growing rat colony, Willard befriends a white rat he names Socrates, which he considers his only friend.

Willard quickly becomes obsessed with his new friend. At work, Willard is verbally abused again by Martin and locked in the elevator, eventually let out by Cathryn. That evening, he watches as Socrates begins to tear up a newspaper, prompting him to train the now expansive horde of rats. Among them is Ben, a large Gambian pouched rat that is jealous of Willard's favoritism towards Socrates. After he trains the rats sufficiently, Willard takes them to Martin's home, where he orders them to chew up the tires on Martin's new Mercedes-Benz. The next day at work, Willard takes great pleasure seeing Martin show up late and tired. While Willard explains to the hundreds of rats that they must move out, with Ben as their nominal leader, Willard's mother overhears him and assumes he is planning to get rid of her. Startled by noises from the basement, Willard finds her dead the next morning, having fallen down the basement stairs. Socrates comforts a devastated Willard. At the wake, Willard learns that his mother refinanced the family home to pay off his father's debts and that the bank will likely foreclose upon the property.

In his mother's bedroom, Willard finds an envelope from the coroner's office containing the effects found on his father's body, including the still-bloody pocket knife he evidently used to commit suicide. Distraught, Willard attempts to take his own life with the knife until Socrates stops him. In an effort to cheer up Willard, Cathryn speaks to him about the loss of her own mother and gives him a pet cat, whose own mother helped Cathryn to grieve. Willard reluctantly takes the cat, with Socrates safely stowed in his pocket. In a scene set to Michael Jackson's title song from the movie Ben, the cat is pursued and fatally overpowered by the rats, which have taken over the entire house.

Desperately lonely, Willard begins to bring Socrates to work with him. In spite of the contract stipulating that Willard remain employed by the family company, he finds a note at his desk from Martin declaring that he is being fired. Willard argues with Martin before throwing himself against the door and begging to keep his job. During their confrontation, Socrates is discovered in the supply room by Martin's secretary. Her screams alert Martin, who bludgeons Socrates to death as a helpless Willard looks on. Finally pushed to breaking point, Willard hatches a plan to avenge Socrates with Ben. Loading hundreds of the rats into a company van, Willard confronts Martin. At Willard's command, the rats swarm upon Martin and kill him. As the elevator descends, Willard says goodbye to Ben and the other rats.

At home, Willard kills the remaining colony before rat-proofing his entire house. Exhausted after the night's events, he is finally awoken by the doorbell. Terrified by the shadows of two policemen, he remains standing in the hallway until the evening, seeming experiencing some kind of fever. Cathryn appears at the house, informing Willard that Martin's body was found and that rumors had arisen that he was either murdered or eaten by animals. Coming face-to-face with Ben, Willard tries to leave the house before realizing that the rats have chewed out his car tires. Accosted by the two policemen, Willard runs back into the house and frantically attempts to prevent the rats from entering. Trapping himself in the kitchen, Willard is confronted by Ben, which he tries to kill with a mouse trap. Believing that Willard is talking to himself, and aghast at the rat infestation, the police leave to call the Bellevue Hospital Center and health department. When Cathryn tries to enter the house, they warn her against entering, asking whether she wants to be eaten alive. A horrified Cathryn connects the rats to Martin's death and realizes that Willard was responsible. Ben viciously attacks Willard as he tries to escape the house. The police officers and Cathryn look on as Willard, outlined in the upstairs window, brutally kills Ben with his father's pocket knife.

The final scene reveals that Willard is in a psychiatric hospital, semicatatonic and refusing to eat. A white rat appears in his cell, crawling into Willard's sleeve as Socrates used to. An overjoyed Willard, believing that his friend has been reincarnated, begins to tell the rat his sinister plans for the hospital attendants.

Cast

• Crispin Glover as Willard Stiles ia a lonely outcast and employee of Frank Martin's, whom Willard feels stole the manufacturing business built by his father. Willard is constantly abused by his boss and his beloved mother, for whom Willard cares. He befriends a colony of rats, especially a white rat named Socrates and a large rat named Ben, though the latter soon becomes an antagonist. When Socrates is killed by Martin, he uses his rats to get revenge.
• R. Lee Ermey as Frank Martin is the cruel and uncaring CEO of Martin-Stiles Manufacturing. He constantly humiliates Willard for his late arrivals at work, and seems set on firing Willard and seizing his house. He is eventually eaten alive by Willard's rats.
• Laura Elena Harring as Cathryn is one of Willard's co-workers, who sympathizes with him and comforts him after his mother's death. She quits her job in solidarity for the ill-treated Willard, though she later learns of his involvement in Martin's death.
• Jackie Burroughs as Henrietta Stiles is Willard's ill yet verbally abusive mother. Frail and eccentric, she berates her son for being single and feels that his life has been wasted. She is nevertheless anxious over her son, presumably related to the suicide of his father several years before.
• Kimberly Patton, also billed as Ashlyn Gere, portraying Barbara Leach is Frank Martin's secretary, who is often rude and callous to both Willard and Cathryn.
• William S. Taylor as Joseph Garter is a trustee of the Stiles estate; he informs Willard of his dire financial situation after his mother's death.
• Ty Olsson as Officer Salmon is a policeman who tries to talk to Willard, presumably regarding Frank Martin's death. He asserts unambiguously that Willard is "nuts".

Bruce Davison, who portrayed Willard in the original 1971 film, makes a nonacting cameo as Willard's father in a portrait above the house's fireplace.

Release

Box office

The film opened at number eight at the U.S. box office, grossing US$4,010,593 It fell to 13 the following week, and finished with $6,886,089 in domestic box office and $1,660,577 in foreign box office.

Critical reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 64% based on reviews from 129 critics. The consensus reads, "In this creepy story of a man and his rodents, Glover seems born to play the oddball title character". On Metacritic, it has a score of 61% based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D-" on an A+ to F scale.

Awards

• Crispin Glover was nominated for Best Actor at the 2004 Saturn Awards.
• Robert McLachlan won the CSC award at the Canadian Society of Cinematographers Awards for Best Cinematography in a Theatrical Feature.
• The DVD release was nominated for a Golden Satellite award for Best DVD Extras at the 2004 Satellite Awards.

External links

• Willard at IMDb
• Willard at Metacritic
• Willard at Rotten Tomatoes
• Willard at Box Office Mojo