Ratter is a 2015 horror film starring Ashley Benson and Matt McGorry. Benson plays Emma, a new college student who has just moved into a new apartment. However, things take a turn for the worse when she begins receiving clues that someone is watching her.The film is notable for its voyeuristic POV, as every angle is from a device with a camera that the stalker has hacked into (a cell phone, a laptop, a Kinect, etc).
This film provides examples of:
- The Bad Guy Wins: At the end, the hacker breaks into Emma's apartment and abducts her.
- Building of Adventure: All of the action takes place inside Emma's apartment.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: The hacker lusts over Emma, and is shown taking snapshots of her feet and watching her as she showers, exercises, sleeps... and pleasures herself.
- The Cracker: The Big Bad is a creepy hacker who cracks through all the main character's devices to stalk her. The entire film is shown from his perspective, through all the different cameras surrounding the lead.
- Creative Closing Credits: The main credits are accompanied by a multitude of screens showing everyday people going about their private lives, completely unaware that they're secretly being filmed.
- Dead Animal Warning: Emma returns to her apartment to find her cat Clover dead. While others try to convince her that this could have been an accident or natural causes, Emma is convinced it is the work of her stalker.
- Downer Ending: Emma is kidnapped by her stalker while her mother watches helplessly via webcam, crying and begging in vain for the stalker to let her go before he slowly closes the laptop.
- Found Footage Films: Emma is secretly being monitored by a cyber stalker who has hacked into her phone, laptop, and other devices with a camera. The entire film is shown through each of these devices, as if the audience themselves is intruding on Emma's private life.
- Hacker Cave: The poster above depicts the stalker watching Emma through a screen in a very dark room.
- One-Word Title
- Properly Paranoid: Emma grows increasingly anxious once she realizes she's being watched. It's especially tragic since we, as an audience, know just how much danger she's in right from the get-go... since we've been stalking her alongside the culprit.
- "Rear Window" Witness: At the end of the film, Emma's mother in Wisconsin can only watch helplessly via webcam as Emma is assaulted and abducted in New York.
- Red Herring: A few, with the biggest one being Emma's jilted ex-boyfriend.
- Social Media Is Bad: A young woman is harassed by a stalker/hacker who has hacked into her devices and can track her because she's always online.
- Stalker with a Crush: It's made uncomfortably clear that the hacker lusts over Emma, as he's shown taking snapshots of her feet and watching her as she showers, exercises, sleeps... and pleasures herself.
- The Stinger: In a mid-credits scene, the police finally arrive at Emma's wrecked apartment, but she and the stalker are already gone. Whether or not they find her eventually is up to the viewer's interpretation.
- The Unreveal: Emma's stalker turns out to be a complete stranger.
