REVIEW: LA PATRIA DEL RATA aka EXIT: DEAD END
LA PATRIA DEL RATA (Exit: Dead End for international distribution) is a kinky movie from 1981. It was directed by Francisco Lara Polop a famous destape – softcore- director and written together with Manuel Summers – a successful writer, director and producer those days.
The movie tells the story of El rata- real name José Moya Merino-, a well-known criminal in the city, who has just been released from prison and it is now lost in a city that cannot offer him anything legal to do in order to survive. Armed with a slash he has been robbing banks, citizens and smuggling so he decides to commit more crimes to continue living. While he is running away from the police, he breaks into a house where a little girl is sleeping, and he locks himself down there while he tries to trade his scape with the police. El rata treats the little kid well and takes car of all medication she needs for her multiple illnesses.
As a curious fact let me tell you that El rata is played by Danilo Mattei a familiar face for the aficionados as he was in Cannibal Ferox and The Kiss of the Cobra.
Far from being a classic such as Eloy de la Igelsia’s or De la Loma’s it is a funny and entertaining film. There are some cheesy parts, especially in the scenes related to the kid, and a lot of drama at the end. Lara Polop and Summer try to include some political critic and background that nowadays and out of context may not be understood or essential for the plot.
A good example of this kind of cinema so popular at the beginning of the Spanish new democracy.
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Elena Anele is the woman in charge of SPANISHFEAR.COM, Horror Rises from Spain and Un Fan de Paul Naschy . A literature and cinema researcher, finishing her postgraduate studies with a thesis about the mystic filmmaker José Val del Omar. She has published in different media and books as Fangoria or Hidden Horror. She has also been in charge of several translations including Javier Trujillo’s complete works, La Mano Film Fest, The Man who Saw Frankenstein Cry and many more.
