Willard Stiles (Bruce Davison) is a mild-mannered young man who is a bit of a loner, socially awkward and somewhat eccentric. After the death of his father, Willard, and his overbearing mother, Henrietta Stiles (Angela Lanchester), continued to live in their large mansion. The family business was taken over by Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine). Willard still works at the family business but has no control over anything.
On his 27th birthday Willard’s mother throws him a party. All the guests are friends of Willard’s mother. Willard gets upset when they start talking about the business being stolen and how Willard should have been more forthright about the situation. Feeling embarrassed he goes outside to be alone. Willard sees a rat in the back yard. He tosses it some cake.
When Henrietta finds out about the rat, she tells Willard to kill it. At first Willard complies with his mother’s wishes but stops himself. Instead, Willard names the rat Queenie and starts feeding her and her babies. Queenie gives Willard one of her babies, a white rat that Willard names Socrates. Willard starts taking Socrates with him to work. All of a sudden, a large dark rat begins showing up. Willard names him Ben and begins teaching all the rats, who have been multiplying, to do various tricks and to learn a few commands.
Willard asks Martin for a raise. Martin refuses. Pissed off, Willard lets some of his rat friends interrupt a party that Martin was given to clients. Willard watches amused as people go screaming from the party. Not long after that Willard’s mother dies. Willard learns that the taxes on the house are past due and that there is no inheritance forthcoming. With the help of his rats, Willard resorts to stealing to get the money he needs.
Previously, Martin hired a temp, Joan Simms (Sondra Locke), to help Willard get his work done. Joan and Willard strike up a friendship. Martin sees that Joan and Willard are friends. He tries to persuade Joan into talking Willard into selling the family home to him so he can bulldoze it down and put up condos. Joan refuses so Martin fires both Joan and Willard hoping that, with Willard out of work, he can get the house cheap. Then, at the office one day, Socrates is seen in the supply room. Martin kills the rat. With this as the last straw, Willard goes off the deep end.
“Willard” was released in 1971 and was directed by Daniel Mann. It is an American horror film that has become slightly obscure but with a bit of a cult following. The film was based on the 1968 novel “Ratman’s Notebooks” by Stephen Gilbert. The movie inspired a sequel “Ben” released in 1972. A remake of “Willard” was released in 2003 with Crispin Glover as Willard and a cameo by Bruce Davison as a portrait of Willard’s father.
Over 500 rats were used in the film. It is considered one of the first films to exploit the animal kingdom by using the premise of “nature gone wild” as well as being the first to use rats as a weapon. There aren’t a lot of murders in the film but there is some blood, and a bit of gore. Most of the creepiness is just seeing liquid piles of rats moving all over the place. Real rats. The rats are just a weapon. The real horror of the film is Willard himself.
During filming, Bruce Davison and Sondra Locke were dating in real life. Locke was still legally married.