Evaluation of 'Rat Trap'

The idea behind Rat Trap is finding comedy in the contrast between the high romance of swashbuckling piracy in the style of adventure movies from the 30's featuring Errol Flynn but with the subject of rats. Rats are seen as disgusting rodents and carriers of disease but in my story they're imitating the humans and acting like pirates.




And whilst this started as simply a dumb joke I found that there was also drama to be had in that setup, the rats believe themselves valued members of pirate crews where they aren't even noticed. Pokeys arc is about discovering his role in the world because it certainly isn't as a pirate but he is too far into the facade to acting like just a rat.

The narrative begins as a fairly conventional pirate story, he arrives at the island and encounters Scab and they wind up duelling over conflicting ideas and miscommunication really. This scene is most evocative of the previously mentioned adventure movies, I took direct inspiration from 'Captain Blood' for this part in the location for the duel to take place in.

Concept art (left) is by Eloise Gardner

However after this scene the narrative takes a turn away from a pirate story as Pokey kills Scab in the name of the humans only to find that they've left without him. He is left on the island to slowly become more rat like and eventually become like Scab, but he does not want this and the story ends with him crafting a makeshift raft and leaving the island to make a place for himself.

In retrospect I think the story in its current shape is a little clumsy, after the humans leave the pacing is broken and it is waiting for Pokey to make the decision to leave but as of right now it isn't motivated by an engaging narrative. And the ending itself feels slightly underwhelming, really the story just sort of peters out after the mid point which is frustrating.

But I do think it has some interesting aspects, I think with some more development it'd have quite a strong visual style and I think there is a lot of comedic moments in the setup. I may even decide to develop this and pitch it as my third year film.