Richard Burgin’s award-winning horror film (now streaming on Amazon Prime and Apple TV) is not your average psychological thriller. It follows a young autistic man as he slowly turns into a rat after being bitten.
Rats on the sidewalks in the middle of the day was just one sign that the pandemic turned life upside down. The cessation of normal commerce deprive city rights of dietary staples, like restaurant refuge. It seems that wherever humanity goes rats will follow. FANG gives the rat a perverse celebrity status. The dark netherworld creatures, garbage eaters, baby biters usually keep a respectful distance from us, but also die in constant proximity to human beings.
Rats have been used in the literature from Shakespeare to H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Rats in the Walls”…but FANG is even scarier. Rats often represent the kind of darkness in the world that people try to ignore or rationalize. FANG brings the unthinkable to life.
The writing and direction by Richard Burgin is nothing short of genius. His sensitivity and remarkable vulnerability regarding the characters is outstanding and lets us know them in an emotional capacity quickly into the film. Dylan LaRay played a convincing role as a young autistic adult and Lynn Lowry and Jess Paul were emotionally tantalizing. The film is one of the better creative horror endeavors.
The Plot:
It’s winter in Chicago and Billy Cochran (Dylan LaRay) can’t stop alienating the people around him. His mother Gina (Lynn Lowry- The Crazies, Shivers, Cat Peoplefourerrf) is in and out of the hospital and her mind is breaking down, caught between her glory days as a Southern belle and her current state of decay. One night, Billy gets an unexpected visitor: a rat that springs out of his bathroom and bites him. At first, everything seems okay. Billy comes home, drowsy from the tetanus shot, and bonds with Gina’s lovely new caregiver Myra (Jess Paul). Then the rat fur appears. It grows out of Billy’s skin, then goes away like it was never there. The more Billy looks in the mirror and scratches, the more he’s forced to face the unthinkable: he might be turning into a rat. Billy is plunged into a waking nightmare where he slowly discovers the truth about himself as he unleashes the ferocious depths of the human and rodent soul.
Watch the “Fang” Tailer on Youtube here:
The official website for Burgin World may be found at https://burginworld.com/