The Rat Catcher is the third in this weird short file experiment from Wes Anderson, also based on a Roald Dahl short story. This one happily sits in the middle ground between the very good Wonderful Tale of Henry Sugar and the just ok The Swan.

The short tells the story of a creepy rat catcher as he explains the various ways to catch rats. Like The Swan, it’s all of seventeen minutes long so saying more risks spoilers.

As with all the shorts in this odd Netflix series, the story is recited to us by the actors, directly to the camera in an almost monotone narration. Richard Ayoade takes center stage as the narrator and he’s great. His natural blasé intonations are already right up Anderson’s alley so he makes all the sense narrating one of his films. He’s backed by a creepy Ralph Fiennes as the rat catcher and Rupert Friend as a townsperson.

This one exhibits Dahl’s uniquely dark and twisted sense of humor as it relates how off-putting the rat catcher is… and the various ways to kill a rat. It’s borderline a horror show at times. The way they depict the rats changes in amusing ways… my favorite being a very familiar (and very welcome) use of stop motion.

The Rat Catcher is a pretty good, pretty amusingly dark little comedy with all of Anderson’s visual trappings and stoic narration. Still wish they were all rolled into one anthology film though.

Score: 82