Willard is a 2003 American psychological horror film written and directed by Glen Morgan and starring Crispin Glover, R. Lee Ermey and Laura Elena Harring. It is loosely based on the novel Ratman's Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert, as well as on the novel's first film adaptation, Willard (1971), and its sequel, Ben (1972). It was not billed as a remake by the producers, who chose instead to present it as a reworking of the themes from the original with a stronger focus on suspense.

Plot

Social misfit Willard Stiles, who cares for his ill and fragile but verbally abusive mother Henrietta in a musty old mansion, is constantly humiliated and mercilessly taunted in front of his co-workers by his vicious and cruel boss, Frank Martin, who took over the Stiles family company after Willard's father Alfred died by suicide in 1995; Frank promised Stiles that Willard would have a job as long as she lived. After discovering and failing to exterminate a growing rat colony in the basement, Willard befriends and quickly becomes obsessed with a white rat he names Socrates, considering him his only real friend.