WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
You can’t help but feel sorry for the domestic cat sometimes, especially the black cat due to its historical connections to witchcraft – leading some people to believe they are evil. Now it’s understandable that people are scared of big cats like lions and tigers because no matter how beautiful and majestic they look – they could rip your throat out if given the opportunity. So, with all this in mind, here’s some chilling horror films about our feline friends…
The Uncanny
I’m going to get it out there straight away, you can’t go wrong with a film starring Vincent Price and Donald Pleasance – just unfortunately due to the style of the film they don’t share the screen at any point. You know how Stephen King’s Cat’s Eyes is an anthology film connected by one cat’s walk through the city and what it sees? Well, with this film, each story has some dark feline energy at its centre. I put it this way as not all of them show killer cats, in the opening Wilbur is only stalked by a black cat and is overall terrified of them as he believes them to be the devil in disguise. However, I ask a simple question, is revenge truly evil? Because in my opinion in the first story, London 1912 and the last, Hollywood 1936, that is all the cats are trying to do – take revenge for what is done to their owners. The reason I’m focusing on these two is because the second story, Quebec 1975, doesn’t really fit as the cat being the mastermind of the evil – as Lucy casts a spell on her own cousin. However, I guess this story leans more into the idea of a witch and her familiar, considering that Wellington is a black cat and Lucy is the descendant of a witch. In case it isn’t obvious, I feel sorry for the cats in each of these stories…
The Corpse Grinders
If you can look past some of the awkward acting in this film, it genuinely has a good, yet disturbing, plot. Think of it as a cat food version of Sweeney Todd. Not that eating people in pies turned anyone into a cannibal – unlike these cats getting the taste for human flesh. Considering the film is so short, there’s very little focus on the actual cats themselves or them attacking people. It opens with a woman being attacked by her cat and then Dr Glass is also leapt upon but outside of this – more of the film concentrates on the crime itself of graverobbing and turning the corpses into cat food. Only a few murders by cats does not a cat horror make. I guess in a weird kind of way, this film plays on the idea that your own cat will eat your dead body because it has nothing left. For me, the cats aren’t the real villains in this film, their violence is just the outcome of something much more sinister – especially once the owners of Lotus Cat Food Company graduate to actually murdering their employees to make the food.
Uninvited
I was hoping I would be able to do a whole article without some sort of mutated animal but I guess you always stumble across one of these kinds of films in any sort of animal horror. The question here is though, is the cat really to blame? Well not the house cat anyway – instead it’s the mutated cat inside it that causes the destruction and chaos that ensues throughout this film. The real question is why, why do this kind of experiment on a poor helpless cat? In a way, it’s like this cat is some sort of vigilante! It kills the scientists that did this to him in the first place before then taking revenge on two truck drivers who robbed and beat up a young lad who was just taking care of him. I even think it would have gone for Walter first, if Lance had not got there to stop him trying to rape Bobbi. Once all our characters are together, isolated on a yacht in the middle of the ocean, this film turns into a slasher come body horror style of film – considering the cat starts picking them all off one by one, plus the fact that it passes on some sort of mutation in its bite that causing a rather spasmatic death. Prepare yourself for a few disturbing scenes, especially when the mutated cat crawls completely out of the house cat’s mouth to kill Corey! Well, I guess it’s more the way it climbs back in that grossed me out…
Burning Bright
All my avid readers know, I absolutely love an isolation horror and this film is no different. Even better as our two main characters are pitted against my favourite animal in the tiger! That’s not to say I’m advocating for the tiger in this instance, of course I’m not, but I am sure it’s just as hungry and scared as they are by being trapped in an unknown place during a hurricane. I don’t know if it makes it a little bit darker than say a film like Crawl, considering the fact that the tiger ends up at Kelly and Tom’s house on purpose because of her stepfather’s crazy idea to have a safari park! I must admit, from the introduction of the tiger in the very beginning to when all hell breaks loose – this film is a little bit of a slow burner. What I want to know though, is when and how did it get in, considering they were boarding up the house because of the hurricane and nothing looks broken. I really do commend the director for the use of actual tigers in this film, however there are times it feels obvious that the actors and tigers, understandably, were never in the same room during filming. A little like The Corpse Grinders, I don’t believe Lucifer, the tiger, is the true antagonist in this film, as it seems to me that Johnny, Kelly and Tom’s stepfather, has used the tiger to try and kill them!
Strays
This film has such a dark opening and really begs the question, what lives in the basement that these stray cats answer to? Because for me, they seem to feed the old woman to something down there. More specifically, it seems that there is one feral cat that they all seem to answer to – who looks A LOT like Church from Pet Sematary (1989)but that could just be a coincidence of breed. Annoyingly, following this opening, very little actually happens until around 40 minutes into the film when the phone engineer is attacked in the basement. Don’t get me wrong, usually I don’t mind a slow burn but at least others of a similar style, like Arachnophobia for example, have a little bit of suspense here and there which this seems to lack. Maybe because they’re focused on the idea that Paul may be having an affair with his sister-in-law, the cat side of the story takes a little bit of a backseat. It sounds really bad, but towards the end, when the sister falls, I was genuinely expecting it to turn into some grizzly scene of the cats tucking into her body but I guess most of you will be happy to know it’s not the case.
Beast
I know, I know, this film probably wouldn’t be considered as horror – maybe closer to thriller or action but I guess you could say the same for most of these as there is no theme of the occult included in any of them. However, is there anything scarier than knowing the film drew its plot from the real-life attacks of the Tsavo man-eating lions in 1898? Add to the isolation of being stranded in a Tsonga village while be stalked by said man-eating lion and it makes for a rather intense film! Unlike Burning Bright, the lion used in this film is completely CGI, meaning it can genuinely attack and interact with the actors making the scenes look less awkward. For example, even though it’s clearly a dream, when the lion jumps on Meredith and Nora it genuinely made my heart skip a little bit! I have to admit, the conclusion of their saga with the lion doesn’t make any sense to me – why would two other lions choose to protect Nate when he’s being attacked? Would they not just let it get on with it? They say they’re protecting their pride lands but it just doesn’t feel realistic to me.
