(Rossana San Juan), reluctant to grant a divorce to her es- tranged industrialist husband Roberto (Gerardo Albarran). Her new flame is Axel (Miguel Angel Rodriguez), a scientist who discovers extra perils of pollution in the form of mutant insect life—catching on to Roberto’s illegal dumping of toxic waste in the process. The industrial cover-up and the sub- sequent acts of intimidation are one thing, but Irina’s got even bigger problems in the form of radioactively-enhanced rats in her dwelling place... THE DEMON RAT is fre- quently castigated for its poor visual quality, but the deliber- ately murky landscape is more to blame than any photographic defect, though the re-shot opening titles are particularly bad and likely to sour one’s per- ception of the picture early on. The future hell is actually quite effectively portrayed, as is the human drama. Galindo also tries to make up for the DTV stigma by including a stronger sex scene than usual (discreet near-nudity), but the result is awkwardly-timed and distracting. In the end, it’s the rat monsters themselves that sink the project—we take a huge step backwards from GRAVE ROBBERS with a couple of laughable, shaggy Yeti suits equipped with long tails as the climax unfolds. Too bad—with a proper budget, this could have been an excellent blend of LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH and OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN. Disc 4 takes a chronologi- cal step back to offer two ver- sions of Galindo, Jr.’s most concentrated effort to break into the American market. Flipping to Side B in order to watch the Spanish-language rendition of Dimensiones Ocultas first turned out to be a mistake, as 1987’s DON’T PANIC


DAWN OF THE DEAD imagery like this does little to compensate for the shaggy Yeti suit of THE DEMON RAT.


was actually filmed in English— while the optional subtitles are, of course, available, the Span- ish-language version, for once, is the dubbed print! Jon Michael Bischof stars as Michael—late of Beverly Hills but relocated to Mexico City—a high-school stu- dent given a birthday surprise by his (obnoxious) friends as the film opens. On the one hand, he makes the pleasurable ac- quaintance of new student Alexandra (Gabriela Hassel of VACATION OF TERROR)—on the other hand, his friends man- age to goad him into playing with the Ouija board he previ- ously renounced. The invoca- tion of a supernatural spirit known as “Virgil” turns out to be no joke, and Michael sud- denly develops a severe case of “red-eye” as he bears unwilling psychic witness to the system- atic murders of his classmates. To make matters worse, “Virgil” takes up residence in the re- cently-deceased body of his former best friend and starts dogging Michael’s increasingly desperate steps.


While not taking it as far as actually setting and shooting his film in America, Galindo none- theless downplays much of the distinctively Mexican feel of this crossover project. Religion, though not completely absent, takes a back seat to the super- natural power of love itself, here represented by a flower that will never wither as long as true love exists between its giver and its recipient. Sex is obvious, but vi- sually discreet. Most distracting of all are the Spanish-language signs crudely masked with their English counterparts (most no- tably “City Hospital”). Yet these complaints are minor as the film itself again manages to touch on accessible Stateside horror (not to mention Canadian genre work, as with a VIDEODROME-inspired apparition reaching out from a staticky television screen) without complacently falling into a pat- tern dictated by any one film (no, not even WITCHBOARD). As with Galindo, Jr.’s other films on dis- play, the cast (including Edna Bolkan as one of Michael’s teach- ers) is appealing, the effects and


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