my review of The Cat Creature

I just watched a bootleg DVD of an incredible 1973 made-for-TV movie called The Cat Creature. It's only about 73 minutes long but is cooler and scarier than a lot of recent full-length feature films. The story takes a long while to introduce the fellow who turns out to be the main protagonist (a professor of archeology and Egyptology) but wastes no time in introducing the antagonist, a black cat who struts around and kills people. Within the first 25 minutes, the kitty offs two people: one by tearing out a throat (shown in shadows with wicked sound effects) and one by psychically impelling a young shop girl to leap to death from the balcony of her apartment. The MacGuffin that drives the plot is a solid gold amulet with the head of a cat on it that was stolen from around the neck of a mummy. The professor and a police lieutenant search for the amulet while more bodies pile up. There's a fantastic twist ending that I don't want to spoil for those who take the time to track down a copy of this creepy little film.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Cat Creature. The plot slows down for awhile after those first two kills, but it's worth sitting through the slow scenes to get to the very end when you learn the true nature of the cat and what she wants. This project absolutely deserves an official DVD release and/or a big screen remake. The teleplay was penned by Psycho novelist Robert Bloch (from a story he wrote with two other fellows). This one's well-worth tracking down.