Where to watch Of Unknown Origin
3 1/2 Stars
Bart Hughes has a pretty good life, a beautiful wife, a young son, a good job with promotion prospects, and a renovated brownstone in New York. When wife and kid leave for a vacation, Bart stays behind to work on a project that will earn him that promotion, unaware that a certain inhabitant of his basement has other plans for his time. Bart goes a bit bonkers trying to kill this rat, destroying most of his house in the process. Certain allegorical elements tie the household conflict to the “rat race” in his office, but the main event is certainly the night-and-day contest of wills between man and rodent.
Of Unknown Origin is about a man obsessed with the “rat race”, literally. He chooses his work over his family, and as a rat wreaks havoc in his home, he chooses that fight to the death over his family. It’s kind of an odd yet brilliant descent into madness flick.
Being the beginning of the 80’s and the budget a lot of this movie relies on clever blocking, framing and editing. The effort that director George P Cosmatos (and his editors) put in here is nothing short of mesmerizing. The rat is often created out of sound and close ups of real rats, shot in such a way as to add size and weight, quickly cut into the action and against Peter Weller’s mad reactions.
Peter Weller is at his best here, playing a character that has everything together in the beginning, but slowly falls into an obsessed madness with killing his uninvited house guest.
If you’re a fan of odd horror, descent into madness flicks or just really into cool filmmaking techniques I’d say Of Unknown Origin is a must watch.
Directed by: George P. Cosmatos
Written by: Chauncey G. Parker III, Brian Taggert
Starring: Peter Weller, Jennifer Dale, Lawrence Dane