Darth-Helmet After the events of the original movie "Willard" and after Willard's demise by Ben and his horde of killer rats, they have escaped from his house and Detective Cliff Kirtland (Joseph Campenella) is investigating the murders. A lonely disabled with a weak heart condition boy named A Danny Garrison (Lee Montgomery) befriends Ben and keeps it as a pet. Yet sometimes the rat would go out to lead it's friends to attack people in the city as it's up to the detective to stop the rats.A fairly decent sequel to the 1971 shocker Willard which was a surprise box-office hit which made Bing Crosby Productions and Cinerama greenlite a sequel. The film co-stars Tobey Kenneth and Meredith Baxter Birney, it's a story of a boy and his rat with some gritty dark edge thrown into it and the theme song by Michael Jackson which was nominated for best song of 1972 at the academy awards. The film is a twist on man vs rats with the Lassie style boy and his pet rat kind of thing with some shocks and all as the boy in the movie even uses the rats to attack some bullies who pick on him.

Scott LeBrun Screenwriter Gilbert Ralston concocted this sequel to the previous years' big money maker "Willard" in a logical enough way. Since the only main character who survived that film was the rat Ben, Ralston fashioned a story around him. As a detective named Kirtland (Joseph Campanella) investigates the death of Willard Stiles, rat armies are mobilized around the city, laying waste to businesses and terrorizing hapless humans. Ben makes his way to the home of Danny (Lee Montgomery), a young boy with a bad heart. The two become best of friends, and Danny vows to protect his new rodent pal, no matter what he has to do or what lies he has to tell.This quickly knocked out sequel (by cult director Phil Karlson of "Kansas City Confidential" and "Walking Tall" fame) is not in the same league as its predecessor, which isn't unexpected. In fact, it's a positively goofy, silly movie, with a fairly bad script by Ralston (unless it's meant to be seen as tongue in cheek; it's hard to tell). There's some cruddy dialogue, and "Ben" also becomes a painful exercise in preciousness and cuteness when we see what kinds of things the "talented" Danny does to amuse himself. Still, it can't help but be touching on occasion, as the lonely Danny declares Ben to be the only real friend he has.There's quite a bit of decent rodent action in this flick, with the little furry animals claiming a couple of human victims. There's a show stopping sequence in a supermarket, and a pleasingly intense finale in the sewers.Young Montgomery is appealing in his introductory role. Rosemary Murphy ("You'll Like My Mother") and future 'Family Ties' mom Meredith Baxter are fine as his mom and sister. (Baxter and Montgomery deserve some credit for doing those sewer scenes; Montgomery also has a lot of nerve in being willing to give a rat a kiss.) Most of the supporting cast has precious little to do, but it's full of familiar faces: Arthur O'Connell as a reporter, Kaz Garas as Kirtlands' partner, Paul Carr and Norman Alden as cops, Kenneth Tobey as a city engineer, and James Luisi as a city worker.The haunting, lovely theme song sung by a very young Michael Jackson is obviously the most memorable thing about the whole production.Fairly entertaining animal attack horror from the old days of using actual animals and not digital critters.Six out of 10.

JoeKarlosi In 1971, WILLARD had been a surprise box office hit about a twisted young man and his morbid obsession with harboring an army of rats to do his bidding. So along comes this lukewarm sequel that fails on just about every count.Starting out promisingly right from the final scene of the first film, a cop and news reporters investigate the grim attic of Willard Stiles, where his dead body lies. Through the finding of Willard's personal diary (a nice plot touch) they discover how he trained a squadron of rats (headed by king rodent "Ben") to kill for him.From there it's all downhill as we switch over to Danny (Lee Montgomery), a sweet lonely child with a heart condition. He's due for another operation that may even kill him. He lives with his mother and an older sister, Eve (a young Meredith Baxter, pre-FAMILY TIES). A chance encounter with Ben the Rat brings Danny his only true friend, and he entertains his squealing furry buddy with sing-alongs, puppet shows, and toy train rides. Danny even composes a song of tribute to Ben, his friend to the end. At the same time, Ben's nose-twitching comrades are festering around the city, scaring people and trashing whole supermarkets as they scavenge for food. Danny is able to actually converse back and forth with Ben and understand squeak-talk, so he tries to impress upon him that he and his rodent friends can't just do whatever they want, because people don't like that. The police are positively baffled as to how to locate and destroy the rats.Playing more like a wholesome Walt Disney family flick (in fact, lead child actor Lee Montgomery DID previously star in Disney's THE MILLION DOLLAR DUCK), this is a dull and saccharine affair with every other cardboard adult character being more uninteresting than the next. The best thing going for this is the likably pleasant hit song featured at the end, and recorded by Michael Jackson - it even won a Golden Globe and was nominated as "Best Original Song" at the Academy Awards! The movie, however, earns a Turkey.*1/2 out of ****

Theo Robertson This is the fondly remembered sequel to WILLARD from the previous year . I say fondly remembered because anyone who saw it late night on ITV sometime round about 1981 seems to have it burned in to their memory . The unfortunate thing is perhaps BEN is better remembered for the title song at the end and even then it's probably got more to do with the singer Michael Jackson . If it wasn't for the song would it be so remembered ? For a sequel it's relatively self contained , so much so you'd probably have little idea that this was a sequel to another film . You can compliment BEN that it dispenses with WILLARD and is a film in its own right that stands up on its own hind legs but the original featuring Bruce Davison was more character driven . Here in BEN the producers treat it almost as a straight out horror movie capitalizing on peoples fear of rodent vermin . It's moderately successful in what it does but there's a major spanner in the works - a little kid One wishes the producers had maybe gone that extra yard and dispensed with a boy and his pet rat premise and just concentrated on rats on a rampage against mankind . Every time young Danny appears on screen and starts composing love songs to Ben the rat you're instantly taken out of the movie thinking you're watching a mawkish children's film from the Disney studio . It also leads to a ridiculous plot hole and hat is how would Danny know his rat is called Ben ? Willard Stiles from the previous film never broadcast the fact that he trained rats and strangely Danny knows the leader of the rat pack is called Ben ? I don't know about rats but there's something fishy about this