Indy drama changed to a horror flick?

For a horror film the pacing of the first half of the movie is terrible, establishing quirky characters and relationships, a bit of location, and a general "life is kind of boring" ambiance. It's as if the writer wanted to tell a story about a girl coming home from the war, scared emotionally and physically, and how she'd reconnect with her dad. And then it turns into a poorly shot mess about a plague of wererats in New York.

Honestly, I think there were parts of two stories here: a horror story without a beginning and a drama without an end.

Comparing it to films like 28 Days Later or Quarantine/Rec doesn't exactly seem fair, as both of those films obviously had larger budgets and backing. On the flipside, weak writing, terrible pacing, and an over-reliance on camera light filters don't help Mulberry Street. Why did Casey get shot (we assume tranquilized) at the end as Otto was dragged away? I have to assume (there's that word again) that the writers were setting up for a possible sequel, using the exact same premise that Resident Evil did (but with less coherence or budget). What was Otto wrapping up earlier in the movie? Why did Clutch prefer to punch infectious monsters in the teeth rather than using a baseball bat (is he that fixated on boxing?)? I understand budget constraints limited the use of live rats, but what's the point of making a movie about rats attacking people en masse if you never show it or really explore how your rat men are different from other plague monsters out there. Having Ross burrow through the building was a nice touch, but the film really needed a lot more of that original thinking to stand out from all the other plague horror flicks.

Pacing. I'll admit to being tired when I saw this, but a horror movie shouldn't bore a person to sleep. The first half of this movie was so slow, and dull, and fixated on establishing character motivations and relationships that it nearly lost me. Now, these are fine traits for a small budget drama, where the movie is the motivations and relationships between people. But in horror, especially an 80 minute plague horror, the audience doesn't care. Characters are there to be brought on the screen, given a minimal amount of depth or quirk to make them interesting and distinct, and then either put in danger or killed off. And in 80 odd minutes, you have to get to that point sooner rather than later.

But what really ruined the film in my opinion was the camera work. It's fairly obvious those involved couldn't afford to set up much in the way of lighting, and dark shots helped hide the quality of FX being used making the wererats seem more frightening than they otherwise might. But still, the graininess and over-reliance on camera filters to convey time of day or mood was absurd. The idea should be to convey -realism- in horror, and not practice with mood lighting. But at the same time, realism should be discarded so that the audience can actually see what's going on. And the bit were the rats were first bursting into the old men's apartment was too confusing; I thought they were bursting "up" into an attic space or something at first.

Honestly, I think the cast was good, the sets were quite decent (if depressing), and there were some good shots here and there when the movie wasn't actively trying to be scary. I think there was the potential for a decent little drama with interesting characters buried underneath it all, although 80 minutes would've been a rush. But as a horror movie this one was a bit of a mess.