“ A major urban problem,” suggests the former in his typically droll, conservative tone. What precisely those rats represent was a question of consternation for some contemporary critics, notably Vincent Canby and Roger Ebert, who both panned the film while only ironically nudging toward a possible social critique. His character is likewise defined by what seems to be an Oedipal maldevelopment and a solitary existence in a decrepit house, except hidden within the home’s cellar-as-subconscious is not the rotted corpse of his overbearing mother but an army of rats he has befriended and trained to do his bidding. Blonde hair and hammy delivery aside, he possesses the same beakish face and boyish shyness pierced through occasionally by a seething rage.
Bruce Davison’s turn as Willard Stiles, the vengeful misfit with an uncanny ability to commune with rodents in the 1971 horror-thriller Willard (Daniel Mann), bears obvious resemblance to Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates.
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