Ben is the 1972 sequel to the 1971 Willard starring Bruce Davison and Elsa "The Bride of Frankenstein" Lanchester. I have seen this many times over the years, but Weena #TheHorrorLovingCat had never seen it (we watched the TCM print of this, which is excellent). I've always been a bigger fan of Ben than Willard; even though it takes forever to get going. The general idea behind the film is that Willard's main rat Ben survives the ending mayhem of the first film and winds up with a puppet loving little boy Danny Garrison (Lee Montgomery--he also stars as the boy in Burnt Offerings 4 years later). I'm sure that a lot of younger fans of horror will wonder what there is like about this as far a horror goes--in my case, it is that, once it does get going, it reminds me of one of my favorite radioactive films of the 1950's: Them!. Also, I love animal horror, so for fans of that sub-genre, this is a must. However, I will be the first to acknowledge that this is not for everyone; very many will find it annoying, or just plain boring. Weena certainly wasn't that impressed, she gave it a solid cat MEH!! 😼 (...And if you really want to know something truly amusing or strange about this film, it was that it was a (at least in part) a Bing Crosby Productions funded horror picture! Go figure!! 😉). If you are interested, both Willard and Ben will be on TCM on the 24th of this month: here is a lineup.
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