If there's a better way to end a month devoted to vertically challenged villains than with a 63 minute movie about human-eating cats, then I'm living my life wrong.
Quick Plot: A wealthy sadist flies a helicopter, picks up chicks, takes them to his secluded mansion, serves them brandy in comically oversized glasses, shags them in a variety of locations on his property, shows off his collection of severed heads, kills them, feeds their parts to his menagerie of domestic short-haired cats, and repeats the process.
Quick Plot: A wealthy sadist flies a helicopter, picks up chicks, takes them to his secluded mansion, serves them brandy in comically oversized glasses, shags them in a variety of locations on his property, shows off his collection of severed heads, kills them, feeds their parts to his menagerie of domestic short-haired cats, and repeats the process.
Obviously, this is the greatest film ever put to screen.
(NOTE: Some of this review might have been written by other members of my household)
Beginning with its title--which can kind of be read as Night of a One Thousand Cats, which is adorably awkward--this is something special. Not 'good' by any conventional definition. The bulk of your film involves a man with a perm (genre stalwart Hugo Stiglitz, and yes, even Tarantino saluted him in Inglorious Basterds) in a helicopter. That's about 60% of its VERY brief running time.
But the rest involves man-eating cats.
Sometimes, there are SLOW MOTION cats.
Often, there EXTREME ZOOMS.
And even more EXTREME CLOSE-UPS.
LOTS of EXTREME CLOSEUPS
There are GIANT GLASSES.
A mansion DECORATED WITH STUFFED BEARS AND JARRED HEADS.
And, uh, THIS:
Look, this is a terrible piece of cinema. But it's the rare piece of cinema that involves a whole lot of man-eating cats. So for that, huzzah. Huzzah to us all.
High Points
High Points
Cats. Lots of them.
Low Points
Cats, probably lots of them, most likely experienced less than ASPCA friendly treatment on this set. I have no proof of this, save for the fact that the film includes multiple moments where our villain hurls his feline costars at each other or occasionally, the camera. Considering the only place the budget seems to show up is in gasoline for the helicopter, I just can't imagine the producers doled out extra cash for a wrangler
Lessons Learned
Your a 1000 cats might hate you, but you can always count on the soft touch of your stuffed polar bear
Never beat your boss in chess. You’ll probably be rewarded by being pushed into a den of man-eating cats
Any man who longs to put you in a crystal cage is generally not long-term material
Any man who longs to put you in a crystal cage is generally not long-term material
Great parenting probably doesn't begin with leaving your six-year-old daughter home alone while you take off in a helicopter to bang a millionaire with a den of killer cats
Rent/Bury/Buy
Night of (a) 1000 Cats is a dreadful excuse for a movie. But it also has a lot of cats. 5 out of 4 paws it is!
That about ties it up for this round of The Shortening. Need a little more little villains in your reading? Allow me to direct you onward to some dear blogging pals who took up the challenge.
Over yonder From the Depths of DVD Hell, blogger and podcasting superstar Elwood Jones took a trip to the desert to tackle one of my favorites, 1974's trippy Phase IV. It has less bell bottoms than Empire of the Ants, but it's still pretty darn gnarly. Head on over!
and most importantly, Cathy's Curse! Cathy's Curse! All day long, CATHY'S CURSE!
GO GET IT ALL!
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