Disappointed to see some recent reviews that give this score a low rating. This movie is from the 70s - of course it's cheesy and the special effects are low budget when you compare it to movies made today. Watched this film when I was a kid and loved it - very scary for its time. And the end scene - what if! Definitely haunted me.

A group of people, somehow associated with a football team, go to an island for a getaway. Well, they picked the wrong time for vacation because someone on the island has developed a new kind of food that causes the animals to grow to gigantic sizes. Great if you're raising cattle, not so great when the rats find it.

Inspired by H. G. Wells, directed by B-movie legend Bert Gordon, and starring a young pre-Dante Belinda Balaski, this film is pretty much exactly what you might expect it is. There have been plenty of large animal horror or sci-fi films, both before and after this one. Is this one of the better ones? Who is to say?

The film is good for what it is: people fighting large rats. Sure, it is silly and kind of cheesy, but is that not what you expect from sci-fi films of the time period, especially the giant animal variety? I cannot say this movie had anything special about it, but it sure was not terrible, either.

For what it is worth, Gordon calls this film the one he had the most fun making, due to the cast and crew being on a Canadian island far from the studio. He also had the pleasure of writing the script on the fly when an unexpected snowstorm prevented the original plan!

Paul Corupe says this film has "the most fearsome creatures of any Gordon film", but that seems highly contentious.

Football player Morgan and his friends go on vacation on an isolated island where they are attacked by giant wasps. His friend is killed. He escapes to a barn where he's attacked by giant chickens. The farm is owned by the Skinners. Mrs. Skinner (Ida Lupino) desperately asks him to check out some giant rat holes. The Skinners have been feeding their chickens with something called Food of the Gods, a substance bubbling up from the ground on their property.

First, the characters really underplay the death of their friend. The acting is pretty bad. They do have veterans like Ida Lupino but this is mostly B-movie level. It's a mistake to let the two guys to leave the island. It brings up a lot of questions and allows the tension to dissipate. They should be trapped on the island fighting off the giant creatures. Instead, there are new people which requires new introductions. The giants and miniatures are good B-movie fun but this is generally a bad B-movie. And rats can definitely swim.