‘Rats’ Movie — Ugh

Morgan Spurlock has been a key force in popularizing documentaries, taking on topics with a sense of humor and destroying the image of docs as dry viewing experiences that were the equivalent of a dull college lecture.

Starting with 2004’s “Super Size Me,” which spurred a revolution in fast food towards healthier eating options, Spurlock put his wisecracking persona front and center, giving his films (which also include “Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?” and “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”) an indelible stamp.

We were wandering through the sewers of Paris and rats were everywhere; it was very disturbing.

But he mixes things up in his latest project, the “horror documentary” called “Rats,” which debuts on the Discovery Channel at 9 p.m. PT/ET on Saturday, and Animal Planet shortly after. Inspired by Robert Sullivan’s New York Times bestselling book, “Rats” dives deep into exploring the lives of one of man’s biggest parasite carriers. He travels the world to bring viewers face to face with rats while delving into our complicated relationship with the creepy creatures.

Among the horrific highlights are an interview with Ed Sheehan, a darkly intense man who has devoted nearly 50 years of his life to being the most obsessive rat killer in New York City.

Spurlock also portrays the work of scientists who specialize in analyzing rats, conducting graphic autopsies on them to try and discover a cure for the deadly germs they carry, and shows how different societies handle them — including an Indian rat temple in which 35,000 of the critters roam freely because some Hindus believe that they contain spirits of humans, and a Vietnamese woman who cooks and serves them as a delicacy.

Spurlock remains behind the camera in this one, but as he told Lifezette in this interview, the project fulfilled a lifelong dream of making a film that crossed the line into his favorite movie genre: horror.

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Question: How’d you decide to do a movie about rats?
Answer: “My friend Josh Braun, a producer and sales agent, gave me the Robert Sullivan book “Rats” and I read it. I’m a lifelong horror fan, my parents took me to see “The Omen,” “The Exorcist” and “Scanners that aren’t proper children’s fare but it was the ‘70s and parents didn’t care and thus developed a lifelong horror fan. I thought, what if we shot and scored it like a horror film and as creepy and unsettling as a horror movie could be and yet it’s all true as a documentary?

We pitched it to Discovery and we were off to the races. We started talking about how we’d make it look and compared it to scenes and shadows from horror movies we loved. There’s a lot of shadows, darkness and the score is  John Carpenter-esque. All these things play into this heightened sense of horror realism this movie delivers.

Q: Were you ever freaked out by anything you experienced? Were you ever at risk of being bitten?

“We called countless exterminators and asked for a guy who’s seen it all for decades.”

A: I made the whole movie without being bitten, which I feel very fortunate about. We were wandering through the sewers of Paris and rats were everywhere, and it was very disturbing. And shooting in a rat temple with 35,000 rats is a very unsettling experience, but at the end of the day, they all made the movie better.

Q: What was the most surprising thing you learned?
A: I think there’s multiple things: how quickly they evolve, 10 times faster than humans. If you develop a poison that kills them today , in a couple generations — which can be a matter of months — they are immune to it. They are incredibly nimble, smart, agile creatures. And I developed a respect. Still don’t like them, but I respect them.

Q: How on earth did you find that bizarre exterminator? He seems unhinged.
A: I wanted to find my Quint on the Orca from “Jaws,” telling me about the sharks attacking sailors, and I knew somewhere in New York City there’s a Quint. So we called countless exterminators and asked for a guy who’s seen it all for decades. They all said meet Ed Sheehan in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He’s been doing it 49 years, he’s seen it all and he’s the real deal. He’s exactly he guy we’re looking for to be the crypt keeper within our movie.

Q: Why do you think different cultures react differently to rats? People exterminate them in most places, but eat them in some cultures as a delicacy.
A: You go around the U.S. and people are eating all kinds of things. In New Orleans they serve giant water rats, and me in Virginia, I grew up eating squirrels. Is it really that much weirder? But that’s part of the cultural differences I wanted to highlight in the movie. You look at the temple in India and then take a day’s drive below to Mumbai, where they kill them with bare hands. They don’t see them as ancestors but see them as spreading disease that can hurt their children.

Q: What’s next on tap for you?
A: This is the thing that we’re most excited about. But next week, we’re also premiering next week a theatrical documentary called “The Eagle Huntress,” about a 13-year-old girl from Mongolia who hunts with an eagle and becomes a champion. It’s the only time we’ve ever made a G-rated movie. It’s incredibly inspirational and everyone from ages 7 to 70 would do well to see it.