There are a lot of rats in New York City (though not as many as commonly believed), so a spate of attacks on humans by aggressive rodents attracts some news coverage, but is not immediately seen as the start of a major disaster.
But this is an October review, so of course Bad Things are about to ensue. The rats, it seems, carry a pathogen of some kind which infects anyone they bite, turning them (slowly or quickly, depending on partly on how badly they were bitten and partly on narrative needs) into ravening, mutated monsters that want nothing more than to attack and feed on any humans they see. Soon the uninfected find themselves hunted in the streets or under siege in their own homes.
So what we have here is a zombie movie in all respects except the actual presence of zombies - which come to think of it was also basically the situation in writer Nick Damici's later film Stake Land, though the specifics of the two films are very different.
And a pretty good zombie movie it is, even without any undead monsters. The cast aren't well known names or faces, but they do a solid job. The movie's financial assets don't always stretch to the most convincing of special effects, but the film-makers are smart enough to minimise the impacts of that weakness. And lastly there's a pretty solid script, creating a set of characters who are reasonably likeable and then putting them through hell. Probably the only narrative misstep - at least for my tastes - came right at the end; which is an unfortunately impactful place to go wrong, of course.
I originally had another movie slated for review on Halloween but it was such a damp squib of a film that I decided to sneak in a watch Mulberry Street as well, and I am glad I did. If you've enjoyed zombie fare in the past, then even though it's not technically got any zombies in it, you should find this an engaging watch.
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