Willard

Willard Stiles is a withdrawn young man mocked by his coworkers and pushed aside at the company his late father founded, now run by his overbearing boss, Al Martin. At home he cares for his demanding mother and keeps to himself, his closest companions being two rats he has raised, Socrates and Ben. When Martin kills one of the animals at the office, Willard turns the rats into a means of revenge against the people who have humiliated him, though his bond with Ben grows increasingly difficult to control.

The film is a horror and science-fiction story directed by Daniel Mann, whose earlier work includes Come Back, Little Sheba and Our Man Flint. It was written by Gilbert Ralston and produced by Mort Briskin. Bruce Davison plays Willard, with Ernest Borgnine as Martin, Sondra Locke as Joan Simms, Elsa Lanchester as Henrietta Stiles, and Michael Dante and Jody Gilbert in supporting roles.

On IMDb, the film holds a rating of 6.1 from 141 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 5.6 from 23 reviews. The modest gap between the two scores suggests a small, mixed audience rather than broad acclaim, consistent with a release that found a niche following. The story later continued in the film Ben and was remade under the same title in 2003.