Absurdist comedies thrive on the illogical, surreal and nonsensical, often rejecting conventional storytelling in favor of unpredictability, exaggeration and unsettling imagery. They appeal to those who enjoy the subversion of traditional narratives, the shock of randomness or the deeper satire hidden beneath the chaos. Adult Swim exemplifies this style, embracing absurdity in a way that many find brilliant and boundary-pushing. But for me, the lack of a clear punchline or satisfying resolution often makes it feel more tedious than entertaining — like a joke that stretches on indefinitely without ever delivering a true payoff.
Instead of feeling amused, I usually find myself drained by the sheer randomness.
This week, I had the chance to review Rats!, an absurdist dark comedy written and directed by Maxwell Nalevansky and Carl Fry. The film follows Raphael (Luke Wilcox), a restless teenager from the small town of Pfresno, TX. With little to do, he channels his artistic talents into graffiti, which eventually lands him in jail.
Upon his release, his mother — following the advice of the vulgar and overzealous Officer Williams (Danielle Evon Ploeger) — sends him to live with his cousin, Mateo (Darius Autry). However, Officer Williams believes Mateo is involved in a wild scheme to sell nuclear weapons to the Taliban and coerces Raphael into spying on him. From that moment, Raphael’s life spirals into absolute chaos, involving the FBI, plutonium, severed hands and an ensemble of completely unhinged characters.
Let’s start with the positives: Rats! does have some genuinely funny moments, largely thanks to its wildly exaggerated characters. Many of the people Raphael encounters feel less like real individuals and more like cartoon caricatures brought to life, their absurdity cranked up to the maximum. One standout is Billy (Jacob Wysocki), an inept thief whose criminal ambitions are laughably small-scale — he’s constantly getting caught trying to steal toys. His antics managed to get a few chuckles out of me, which is more than I can say for most of the film’s attempts at humor.
Another highlight is the film’s cinematography. Given how deliberately bizarre Rats! is, the way it’s shot plays a crucial role in enhancing its offbeat tone. Many scenes are framed in an intentionally unconventional manner, almost like panels in a comic book, where angles and compositions might seem unnatural in real life but work perfectly within the exaggerated world of the film. This stylized approach helps accentuate the film’s quirky atmosphere, making the oddity feel more deliberate rather than just chaotic for the sake of it.
It’s clear that a lot of thought went into how each shot contributes to the film’s strange, surreal energy.
If you’re a fan of body horror, Rats! unexpectedly delivers in that department. The film’s subplot involving severed hands results in several scenes strewn with dismembered corpses and grotesque body parts. Gun violence is also portrayed in an over-the-top fashion, with wounds that are shockingly gory and exaggerated in their devastation. While the execution isn’t necessarily bad, it feels oddly misplaced in a film that otherwise revolves around a teenage delinquent stumbling into chaos. The sudden bursts of extreme violence feel less like a natural extension of the film’s absurdity and more like jarring tonal shifts that don’t quite mesh with the rest of the story.
Rounding out the positives, Rats! does boast a soundtrack with some undeniably catchy tracks. While much of the music leans toward heavy metal and screamo, it complements the film’s chaotic energy and late-2000s aesthetic. Bands like I Set My Friends On Fire — specifically their track “Things That Rhyme with Orange” — and Thursday help establish the film’s tone, grounding it in an era of angsty, high-octane soundscapes. Beyond the licensed music, the original song, “I Love Selling Crack,” (along with its hilariously absurd music video) was one of the few moments that genuinely had me laughing out loud. A well-curated soundtrack can make or break a film, and in this case, Rats! gets it right, using music to enhance the overall experience and inject some much-needed fun into the madness.
Unfortunately, Rats! suffers from many issues that prevent it from being an enjoyable experience. The absurdity, while initially entertaining, quickly spirals into a relentless barrage of randomness that becomes more exhausting than amusing. At a certain point, I found myself checking the runtime, dreading how much more of this cinematic endurance test I had left. The film also pushes its vulgarity to an excessive degree, particularly with characters like Officer Williams and Madeline (Shelby Quinn), whose crude dialogue is so relentless that it starts to feel like something out of an X-rated feature.
I’m no prude, and I don’t mind raunchy humor when it fits, but here, it felt jarringly out of place — less like edgy comedy and more like an awkward attempt at provocation that misses the mark. Instead of enhancing the film’s absurd charm, it just made it uncomfortable in a way that felt forced, rather than funny.
Rats! earns two out of five stars. In the end, Rats! is a film with flashes of creativity but little payoff. It has the spirit of an Adult Swim short, but instead of being a tight, clever satire, it drags on with exhausting randomness and misplaced shock humor. Fans of off-the-wall absurdity might find some value here, but it’s a messy, disjointed experience that fails to stick the landing.