Peter Weller stars a rising exec tormented by a jumbo rat in 80's psych-horror/comedy(?) Of Unknown Origin. When Weller’s wife and kid take a holiday, he neglects his work for the task of ridding himself of the irritating rodent invader but the slow burning feud takes it’s toll and descends into all out man v rat war. The production is horribly dated and plot totally preposterous but Weller puts in a suitably tormented performance that manages to stitch together all the nonsense. Not great but surprisingly not awful.
Stephen King's canine horror Cujo, also from 1983, shares the simple man vs beast storyline as Origin but lacks the competent acting to bring it to life. A backwater mechanic's lumbering St Bernard gets rabies and after munching the family hounds a woman and child for a couple of days when they arrive to pick up their car. It's got a decent reputation but this little thriller bored my rigid and by the end I was wishing that more of King's usual one-note characters had got the chomp too.
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