Evil Cats! 😼

Evil Cats. MeowMeowMeow!

By Kristin Battestella

Our cats are avid television watchers, and the sounds and visuals of this feline horror trio amused them as much as me.

The Cat Creature – Amulets, mummies, an empty sarcophagus, and black cats combine for a Val Lewton-esque mood in this 1973 ABC TV movie written by Robert Bloch (The House That Dripped Blood) starring Meredith Baxter (The Invasion of Carol Enders). Retro cars and cool California villas provide hieroglyphics, Egyptian motifs, and eerie crescendos as lawyers assessing the deceased's creepy manor survey kooky antiques and looted collections. Though slow to start, the subdued palette invokes a black and white feeling that highlights the golden statuary and colorful artifacts. Spiral stairs, flashlights, shadows, and feline silhouettes are well done alongside glowing eyes, mesmerized victims, meowing, and hooting owls. A shady “sorcerer's shop” procures creepy skulls and masks, but the ominous Miss Black proprietor has already crossed paths with this crusty police lieutenant and knows to turn away our stolen talisman. The ingenue walking home alone at night, however, encounters kitten deceptions, hisses, and screams. The cops call in archaeology professor David Hedison (Live and Let Die) to assess the missing mummy bones, scratched out Bast symbols, jewel thieves, and human sacrifices said to give eternal life and transformative cat powers. Flirtations lead to an affinity for Egyptology – but not for the alley cats accumulating at the door. Disbelievers mock the Book of Toth mysticism and the coroner's hair evidence claiming a domestic cat is responsible for draining the blood of the victims, but our professor theorizes on why disparate cultures all have shape-shifting folklore and warns of Ancient Egyptians knowing more of the supernatural and science than we can fathom. The amulet clues, grounded investigation, and eerie explanations don't talk down to the audience. Certainly the solution is obvious before the finale, but the creepy guest stars, stylish witchy vibes, and tarot cards make for a fun time with well paced deaths, thefts, and twists. We know there's an evil cat in the room when the lights go out, and the spooky climax does a little with a lot. This was better than I expected thanks to a mature, even sympathetic approach and dedicated throwback horror atmosphere.

Two Evil Eyes – George A. Romero (Creepshow) and Dario Argento (Phenomena) tackle two contemporary Poe adaptations in this 1990 Italian co-production featuring Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog), Harvey Keitel (The Piano), John Amos (The Beastmaster), and more familiar faces. Lawyers are reluctant to accept the iffy signature of our eponymous hospice husband granting his former flight attendant wife cash access in Romero's “The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar” but she has the cigarettes, big eighties sunglasses, and shoulder pads to get her way. There's a tinge of guilt, however, as her doctor lover enjoys keeping Valdemar in a state of subconscious hypnosis – attached to metronomes and monitors in a suggestive, aware state. The eerie Tudor manor and Old World wrought iron spiral stairs contrast the beeping machinery; arguments over the morbid stasis and moments of painful clarity disrupt the distrustful dalliances. Technicalities about the thievery and the timing on the paperwork versus the flatlining equipment begat the rush to preserve the cadaver in the freezer – with the food! Mixing pills, booze, and self-hypnosis where no one else can wake you lead to backstabbings over the cash, hastily dug graves, and moaning from inside said freezer. The not so deceased croaks of souls from beyond the grave as storms, gunshots, splatter, and restless spirits give the police a gory resolution. The cops in Argento's “The Black Cat,” however, are gagging at the nude body cut in half while our photographer snaps away to capture the swinging pendulum. Unfortunately, the titular stray taken in by his girlfriend interferes in the red dark room process. Scratching and hissing jars with her classical music, and she warn him cats remember their past persecutions and medieval injustices. The uncooperative four legged model dislikes the rough portrait poses and goes “missing” while drinking and violence conjure a hazy dream from the middle ages with bonfires, singsong rituals, and strung up victims. Chases, cleavers, lookalike cats, noose symbols, and fatalities mount as the demented artiste's disturbing photography book hits the shelves. Hellish bars, catholic touches, and living in sin judgments add to the sociopathic suggestions. Police inquire if he tortured the cat for his art and neighbors knock on the door over the meowing, pick axes, and stench behind the wall. Although this feels a little long or unevenly paced and superfluous rather than taut when deviating from the cat comeuppance, the intense finale brings the prophetic feline justice to the forefront for fans of cast, crew, and Poe.

The Uncanny – Eccentric writer Peter Cushing (Curse of Frankenstein) warns Montreal publisher Ray Milland (The Premature Burial) of felines run amok in this eighty-eight minute 1977 anthology. The expose he's written on cats has him looking over his shoulder at every rattling trash can, meow, and black cat at the gate before side eyeing a fluffy, pampered cat named Sugar. The cat cinematography is well filmed with zooms, pet points of view, up close eyes, and purring as our First London 1912 Tale looks the antiqued, lace part. The lady of the manor's cats are everywhere, and she intends to leave everything to her pride. The greedy maid, however, is caught stealing the will – leading to disturbing smotherings, death throes, screams, and hissing. The kitty siege begats swats, scratches, and blood as the feline assembly and our trapped maid each grow hungry. The reactions, animal action, quick cuts, and frenetic attacks are very well done indeed considering there are seemingly dozens of cats accented by cries, howls, chirps, and trills. A recently orphaned girl and her black cat named Wellington move in with her snooty relatives in the contemporary Quebec Tale Two, but her snobby, jealous, violent cousin blames Wellington for spills and mishaps so her parents will get rid of him. Our charge insists that cats can talk – it just takes a long time to understand them. Fortunately, she has kept her deceased mother's books on the occult and uses the pentagrams and spells for a slightly humorous, if tiny, but chilling turnabout. Donald Pleasence's (Prince of Darkness) Thirties Hollywood Third Story blurs on set and behind the camera as a real pendulum in scene slices one half of our off screen couple amid medieval torches, racks, and iron maidens. It's dismissed as a props mistake as production resumes with our late wife's younger, lookalike understudy, but the deceased's cat objects to the mistress taking over the Art Deco manor, furs, and roadsters. Once they flush her kittens (!), our vengeful mother creates real danger on Dungeon of Horror. They try to trap her in terrible ways complete with all the cat got your tongue puns, however the farce can't outwit the justified feline. Although this humorous third tale should have been first and the more macabre Edwardian tale last, self-aware winks know not to take the subject matter too seriously without interfering in the effective unease. The soon to be Grand Moff Tarkin insists cats are devils in disguise making sure we behave, yet these ironic stories show the terrors of what cats might do only in reaction to cruel people deserving of such consequences.

22 Reasons Why I'm not Excited for New Television Shows

 

22 Reasons Why I'm not Excited for New Television Shows

by Kristin Battestella

Allow me this poetic list, a haiku if you will, of why I am increasingly un-enthusastic about new TV show announcements – even pre-strikes when such buzz was more likely to come to fruition.

Why are we treating storytelling like dead stock, disposable consumption?

Why should I trust the prestige of (HBO) Max now?

All Netflix shows lookalike.

Million dollar sci-fi and fantasy epics on Amazon and Apple have no buzz.

What's the point of watching a show that ends on a cliffhanger but got canceled?

Quality, prestige shows are on underseen, obscure platforms.

Series I enjoy don't get the viewer notice or award recognition they deserve.

Writers, actors, and crew aren't properly compensated for their work.

Some shows I am excited about never end up airing in North America.

Properties are announced on a platform I don't have.

Properties are announced and forgotten by time they actually air.

Properties that would intrigue me are announced and never actually get developed at all.

I forget about the shows that might have intrigued me anyway.

Shows are canceled by one streamer and shopped to another but nothing comes of it.

It's not worth paying for a every streamer for their original series.

If a streamer is unhappy with a show, they will erase it from existence.

Who knows where streamers will be in the 6 months or year it takes to produce a show?

Streamers sell off shows to FAST services as random livestream content.

Streaming series often never come to physical media.

Often the first time one hears about a show is when it's canceled.

It's tough to be excited about a show when you find out about it after it's canceled.

There's no way to ever catch up when there is just too much TV already.

Middling 60s Capers

 

Middling 60s Capers

by Kristin Battestella

Despite name stars and decent production values, this trio of black and white mysteries from the sixties is surprisingly middle of the road. Rather than cinematic flair, each feels more like an overlong anthology entry. Ouch, but pity. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Cash on Demand – Carols, snow, and holiday atmosphere at the bank two days before Christmas set the scene for this 1961 black and white Hammer heist. Bowler hat wearing banker Peter Cushing wants the office to be dignified not festive, and he won't donate to the Christmas party fund. He's not there to ingratiate himself with subordinates and demands efficiency – threatening to see his manager never works in the financial sector again over an innocuous $10 mistake. The employees object to his embezzlement suspicions, but unexpected insurance investigator Andre Morell (Watson to Cushing's Holmes in Hammer's The Hound of Baskervilles) knows all about the tension among the bank personnel. The con artist has done his homework on the holiday deposits, and frantic phone calls lead to kidnapping and blackmail schemes to open the vault. Our insurance impostor recounts the signals and briefcases for the exchange with such menace, but there's no need for brutality – heists can be smooth and sociable while he's sipping tea with his feet up on the desk. On the ball Cushing descends to weak and pleading, emasculated and disrespected in the tense one on ones. This is, however, a very slow, talkative piece with all outside action told rather than seen. The two room bank setting is fine taut, but the previous teleplay source is apparent, the camerawork too plain, and incidental bank minutiae clutters what should be clever theft ploys. Window washers and honking fire trucks passing better create a few startles as the staff nonchalantly lets this thief into the vault unaware. Money bags, spinning locks, and filling luggage with loot lead to flashing light bulb alerts, fiddling with the keys, and thirty second alarm resets. Follow ups with the insurance company and fifteen minute phone check ins are well done when the actual heist happens, and our smooth talker intends to walk right out with a cool $100K. Crisscrossed signals, panic, nervous police bluffs, handcuffs – it takes a crime for crusty Cushing to unravel and unite with his staff to best the ruse and realize people are more important than money. This eighty minute version seems long or unevenly paced with superfluous employees and wasted time on obvious yet muddled slip ups in the rushed resolution. Fortunately, the bank balance turnabouts make for an unusual holiday morality tale for fans of the cast.

Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace – A dead body washes up beneath London Bridge as Terence Fisher directs Christopher Lee (also both of the Hammer The Hound of Baskervilles) in this international 1962 production loosely based upon Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Valley of Fear. Already the set up is superfluous with pretentious kids, a meddling housekeeper, and a simple sounding board Watson who needs Holmes to spell out clues with shadow puppets. The story is repetitive and disjointed with no point of view – deliberately trying to be obtuse with a Sherlock in disguise yet expecting the audience to be Holmes well versed. If you don't know Moriarty is our nemesis, Holmes looks obsessed for accusing a respected academic of murder. He disappears without informing Watson, whose unnecessary comic relief makes one wonder which scenes are important if at all while ominous moments implicate Moriarty just because the plot says so. Egyptology thefts, country estates, affairs, shootings – most of the Doyle nuggets happen off screen while we watch anonymous scuffles at the pub. Coming or going over clues and phone calls again follow the plot rather than real deduction, and we're supposed to like Holmes mocking the incompetent Scotland Yard because the anachronistic swanky jazz more fitting for a fifties noir than the late Victorian setting tells us so. While this looks the cluttered 221B Baker Street part, the crimes feel more like three murder vignettes and the auctions, sewer stakeouts, and car heists are meandering and confusing. Holmes can break into Moriarty's lair and mess with the mummies just because he's Holmes. How does his mailing himself the necklace that he stole from Moriarty prove that Moriarty stole it in the first place? It's easy to zone out on the lookalike ensemble's exposition away from Holmes, for the one on one secrets, alibis, and villainous tête-à-têtes are more interesting once we get Holmes in his deerstalker and stylish plaid cape. Lee provides the commanding wit and haughty air. His clever mannerisms change with each obvious mustache or eye patch disguise. We'll see Lee as Holmes again, however the lack of his own booming voice thanks to unfortunate dubbing practices contributes to the overall meh here. This is not an introductory eighty odd minutes but more like the second in a series where the audience is supposed to know the literature already. Though annoying for Holmes completists, this is really only for the Doyle devoted and Lee connoisseurs.

Stop Me Before I Kill – Swanky cars and jazz on the radio leads to shattered windshields and a ruined wedding day in this 1960 black and white Hammer noir directed by Val Guest (The Quartermass Xperiment) from the novel The Full Treatment. Months after the accident, our former race car driver still suffers mentally – unable to get behind the wheel and panicking on the highway. Although their relationship is feisty and his wife is supportive, his mood swings begat controlling compulsions, bruises, and stranglings amid the kisses. Intriguing visuals, up close zooms, shadowed faces, and cigarette mannerisms accent some very compelling segments alongside lux locales and continental suave disrupted by the hectic headlights, wheel clutching, honking horns, and peeling tires. Our husband is suspicious of the double talking psychiatrist they meet on the Riviera; dinner parties invoke further anxiety and aggression while the Mrs. makes the pleasantries. Friends tell him this lack of confidence is all in his mind and he admits he's behaving like a child, for a real man would seek help before harming his wife. Not being able to hold her without wanting to strangle her, newlyweds sleeping separately, and solo skinny dipping provide a whiff of then-scandalous as the through the binoculars viewpoint and dominance from above camera angles add to the audience voyeurism. We wonder what will set him off next, and his reluctance with our cheeky psychiatrist leads to angry, outwitting psychoanalysis as doctor and patient each contemplate how she should be killed and the gruesome dismemberment to follow once the bloody deed is done. Unfortunately, suspenseful breakthroughs are drawn out to the point of deflation with little regression therapy progress – the speedometer, her crucifix, and who was to blame for the accident are straightforward rather than shocking. The bloody bathroom with the appearance of a crime is obviously a fix, yet he's suddenly ready to race the Grand Prix again? Wife Diane Cilento's (Tom Jones) absence in latter half of the film shows until Riviera lookalikes, vehicular twists, deceptions, guns, and garrotes escalate. This should be much more chilling than it is, but the audience always knows what's what and there's not enough charisma or intensity to overcome the overlong, divided focus between the domestic jeopardy and the ulterior psychiatry.