I had the VHS copy of this and the little kitten softly "meow"ing for help as he was about to be eaten by the rats was very disturbing. Especially when he was trapped in his own home and his mom and aunt couldn't find them.
EDIT: Here it is in full! God what a throwback. As messed up as this story is, I loved it as a kid and would watch it all the time.
Watership Down is one where the teacher assessed tiny me as "high reading comprehension" but no one really delved into, does this child have emotional comprehension of literal killing fields? eh, guess I worked it out emoji finger guns and sad sigh
Nah man. The mom even mentioned that earlier she found 7 of those rats and they ate them for dinner, but couldn't get the "father rat", the fat one in the picture. We can only assume they were his kids that she ate. So it's no wonder they would maybe want some payback.