MovieChat Forums > Ben (1972) Discussion > You know if they were 4 feet tall we wou...

You know if they were 4 feet tall we would lose.

posted 2 years ago by Jeepster (1167)
4 replies | jump to latest

No sh!t yeahhhhhh! You bet your bippy they would. Great observation detective. My main gripe against this movie is how tame it is when for a film of this type they could’ve really have ran with it. But it was made for general audiences for mass appeal so they naturally toned this down a lot.

It’s laughable that when people got attacked & “killed” by the rats, all you see is rats on top of people & that’s supposed to infer that they’re dead. The rats aren’t doing anything other than being on a person but you’re supposed to watch it & say “Yeah they got him”.

You could’ve had some biting, some tearing of flesh or ripping someone apart, but noooo. There wasn’t even a bloody shirt to be found during the whole sequence. If this is ever remade in this day & age you better believe that’s going to be rectified as the horror mavens are just going to run with it as the original makers of this failed to do.

It’s interesting to note that “Willard” is the more serious & adult oriented movie of the two. Better acting & charactizations. It was for more mature audiences even though it wasn’t over the top either but c’mon anybody could tell “Ben” was made for kids & younger audiences to be seen by everybody. It’s curious as to why they went that route between the two movies & chose to switch gears so to speak.

But a nice trip down memory lane though.

[–] April-151-CT (10210) 2 years ago

Because Michael Jackson wrote the song.

They did remake Willard though about 10 years ago starring Crispin Glover.

[–] Jeepster (1167) 2 years ago

Oh I know. Didn’t care for it. It couldn’t match the original & it couldn’t replicate me seeing “Willard” the original when it first aired when I was a child. The remake is so-so, nothing special. Let’s put it this way, they didn’t try & do “Ben” so I guess they didn’t consider it a success in it’s own right.

[–] willjbeau (885) 2 years ago

I knew Willard (2003) was a remake, but I had thought it was a remake of Ben. Today I learned there was another Willard that started it all.

[–] Jeepster (1167) 2 years ago

Yeah it was pretty good. It was the 70’s so it as a 70’s feel to it but it’s very good. Go to Amazon Prime video, you can rent it super cheap or buy it. Watch it, I think you’ll like it. It’s quirky & character driven. A much more serious & darker themed movie than “Ben”. You’ll see Ben’s beginnings in it & how everything got started & why.

“Ben” might’ve been remade if the remake of “Willard” was good but since it wasn’t I guess any plans to do a remake of “Ben” were abandoned.

Btw, did you watch “Ben”? Because the first few minutes of “Ben” were the ending of “Willard”. The ending of that movie was used for the very beginning of “Ben”. Whether you realized it or not what you’re seeing with that blonde haired man trying to feed Ben the poison & then chasing him around, trying to kill him & then getting attacked & killed by the other rats, that was the original Willard in the original “Willard”. It was the final few minutes of “Willard” that they used it as the intro for “Ben”. For continuity’s sake they made it so both movies ran into each other. Where “Willard” ends, “Ben” begins.

If by chance you do rewatch it, here’s a little experiment you can do for me. Rewatch it & try to conclude if what you’re watching (beginning of “Ben”) has a whole different feel for what eventually comes after (the rest of “Ben”) as if something was a bit “off” that you couldn’t put your finger on it, as if you were watching 2 different things. I’d be interested in what you or anybody else has to say about this.