{"id":1187,"date":"2026-07-10T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/?p=1187"},"modified":"2026-06-23T07:37:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T07:37:57","slug":"ailurophobia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/07\/10\/ailurophobia\/","title":{"rendered":"Ailurophobia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WARNING:<\/mark> <\/strong>This Article May Contain Spoilers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t help but feel sorry for the domestic cat sometimes, especially the black cat due to its historical connections to witchcraft \u2013 leading some people to believe they are evil. Now it\u2019s understandable that people are scared of big cats like lions and tigers because no matter how beautiful and majestic they look \u2013 they could rip your throat out if given the opportunity. So, with all this in mind, here\u2019s some chilling horror films about our feline friends\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Uncanny<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              I\u2019m going to get it out there straight away, you can\u2019t go wrong with a film starring Vincent Price and Donald Pleasance \u2013 just unfortunately due to the style of the film they don\u2019t share the screen at any point. You know how Stephen King\u2019s Cat\u2019s Eyes <\/em>is an anthology film connected by one cat\u2019s 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 \u2013 take revenge for what is done to their owners. The reason I\u2019m focusing on these two is because the second story, Quebec 1975, doesn\u2019t really fit as the cat being the mastermind of the evil \u2013 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\u2019t obvious, I feel sorry for the cats in each of these stories\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Corpse Grinders<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              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. <\/em>Not that eating people in pies turned anyone into a cannibal \u2013 unlike these cats getting the taste for human flesh. Considering the film is so short, there\u2019s 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 \u2013 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\u2019t the real villains in this film, their violence is just the outcome of something much more sinister \u2013 especially once the owners of Lotus Cat Food Company graduate to actually murdering their employees to make the food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uninvited<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              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 \u2013 instead it\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u2013 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\u2019s mouth to kill Corey! Well, I guess it\u2019s more the way it climbs back in that grossed me out\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burning Bright<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              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\u2019s not to say I\u2019m advocating for the tiger in this instance, of course I\u2019m not, but I am sure it\u2019s just as hungry and scared as they are by being trapped in an unknown place during a hurricane. I don\u2019t know if it makes it a little bit darker than say a film like Crawl, <\/em>considering the fact that the tiger ends up at Kelly and Tom\u2019s house on purpose because of her stepfather\u2019s 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 \u2013 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, <\/em>I don\u2019t believe Lucifer, the tiger, is the true antagonist in this film, as it seems to me that Johnny, Kelly and Tom\u2019s stepfather, has used the tiger to try and kill them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strays<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              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 \u2013 who looks A LOT like Church from Pet Sematary <\/em>(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\u2019t get me wrong, usually I don\u2019t mind a slow burn but at least others of a similar style, like Arachnophobia<\/em> for example, have a little bit of suspense here and there which this seems to lack. Maybe because they\u2019re 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\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beast<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              I know, I know, this film probably wouldn\u2019t be considered as horror \u2013 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, <\/em>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\u2019s 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\u2019t make any sense to me \u2013 why would two other lions choose to protect Nate when he\u2019s being attacked? Would they not just let it get on with it? They say they\u2019re protecting their pride lands but it just doesn\u2019t feel realistic to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers You can\u2019t help but feel sorry for the domestic cat sometimes, especially the black cat due to its historical connections to witchcraft \u2013 leading some people to believe they are evil. Now it\u2019s understandable that people are scared of big cats like lions and tigers because no matter how … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extreme-fear-can-neither-fight-nor-fly","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1188,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions\/1188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}