Morgan Spurlock’s New Documentary About Rats Is as Horrifying as It Sounds

Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, of Super Size Me infamy, is back in the doc world with a horrifying and edifying look at the disgusting world of rats. Our vermin brethren who run amok in our sewers and garbage like hairy shadows get the full Spurlock treatment in the "horror documentary." They're reviled, revered, and ultimately redeemed, especially since, as the doc makes so clear, they're not going away anytime soon. In fact, my takeaway from the cringe-inducing film was that the rats will most definitely outlive us all. I chatted with Spurlock and his producing partner Jeremy Chilnick about the doc and why rats are so gross.

VICE: So I loved the documentary. It was so emotive. Like I was cringing; I was biting my nails. Why rats?

Jeremy Chilnick:

Why rats? Well, it was originally—this is Jeremy speaking. It was Tom and Josh Vaughn who we've worked with for a number of years, who optioned the book from Robert Sullivan and brought it to Morgan. And Morgan had kind of like a lightbulb moment like 'we should make a horror documentary', which I was like okay, what does that actually mean? What is a horror documentary? And then pretty much that's what set us on on this journey to see if we could make non-fiction to be just as scary and just as terrifying and it's real life. So that was kind of the genesis of the project.

VICE: One of the most compelling characters is the Rat King, and he's just so incredible to watch and you're kind rooting for him and you're kind of horrified by the things he's saying. How did you find him? How did you guys connect?
Morgan Spurlock: You're talking about Ed Sheehan?

Yeah.
Spurlock: Yeah, so, I wanted to find that salty, old exterminator who would tell us these horror stories from the industry. We started calling around New York City and everyone we spoke to was like 'oh you gotta call Ed Sheehan, he's been doing this for like 50 years'. All fingers pointed to Ed, so we found him, we went and met with him. He's such an amazing character and such a great story teller and just like the person you imagined and then as as soon as I sat down and met with him I was like 'omg I found my twin,' this is the guy.

Yeah, he's incredible. And you do get that sense that he sort of has a respect, like a begrudging respect for the rats, just like the shark in Jaws. What was your relationship to rats before you set out to do this?
Spurlock: I think I was just like every other New Yorker. I was just completely disturbed by them, I think I was grossed out. Didn't really want anything to do with them. And after the movie I think it was worse.

Yeah, cause there's a part when you're like horrified, disgusted. The disease part really threw me for a loop, cause you just have no idea, you know, how much…
Spurlock: That's right. That's right.

But then the fear and loathing almost turns into a bit of love and respect at the end. I know you said you sort of left disgusted but, that last scene in the movie in India where they worship rats… Did you get it? When they were talking about how much they love them, were you able to go yeah you know what I understand where they're coming from.
Spurlock: Yeah, I mean what I think I love about that scene, it's just the one place where, you know, they say the one place in the entire world where rats can be… where rats can live, where rats aren't hurt, where they actually can have this beautiful, wonderful, provincial life, where they can just play and eat and make more rat babies. It's such a great, different story that we made sure we told in the film.

What was the most surprising thing you learned about rats throughout the process?
Spurlock: I think the thing that I found to be really compelling and really interesting was how quickly rats evolve, you know? The fact that they evolve ten times faster than humans, that you can create a poison for them that may kill the first generation but the one-two the generations down the line have already developed an immunity to this type of poison. It's a remarkable thing how quickly these rats can adapt and prosper.
Chilnick: I think for me it's just you know, there's this disgusting fact that they mark their territory [with urine] and like leave an entire story behind and that's how they communicate with each other. And they communicate with each other though like generations and it's actually terrifying. I was left more terrified after filming than I was when we started the process.

Oh god, yeah the scene about the poison was really fucking scary.
Chilnick: Oh yeah.

In choosing to make a horror doc, how do you walk that line, you know, obviously the rules of filmmaking are always evolving but the approach to documentaries have, you know, sort of been very stagnant for the last decade…
Spurlock: I mean, I think from our standpoint that this is exactly it. I think that filmmaking, documentary storytelling is an evolutionary process. I think these movies continue to evolve, they continue to change. I mean, you go back to the early 80s when Errol Morris made the Thin Blue Line and people were like how could you put recreations in the movie? That's a travesty on a documentary. Now you have recreations in everything. So ultimately you have to want to embrace new ways of storytelling, different ways of storytelling. You know it wasn't like we did anything different in this film, we just looked at how we framed the story differently. These people are all still real people, they're doing their real jobs, we're tagging along for shooting, but the way we shoot is different, the way we framed our shot is different, the lighting is different, you know, things are much more moody, there's much more shadows, we shot from a much more natural POV in a lot of different places, the score is much more emblematic of a John Carpenter horror movie for me then it is something you see today.

It certainly plays with the format in a really exciting way and I know there were a lot of people in the theatre with their eyes covered, holding their breath. To be honest there was a moment when I lifted my feet off the floor because I suddenly had this panic that a rat was walking across the theatre floor. What's the future for humans and rats? You know, how do we co-exist?
Spurlock: I think you hit the nail on the head.
Chilnick: I dunno. I mean part of me gets worried that it's really up to them and they can just wait it out.
Spurlock: I think that's right. You're never gonna get rid of them, they're always gonna be around, we will also have to cohabitate with them and as we saw in New Orleans, even after we're gone they're still gonna be here. So I think that even the battle for species, long after we've kind of been nuked out or frozen out or died out, whatever fate that is coming for us, those guys will most likely still be around.
Chilnick: Yeah. My money's on the rats.

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