Night of a Thousand Cats [1972]

A thousand adorable, furry terrors await you

The following tiny anecdote should tell you everything you need to know about the interior of my brain. I went to the Happiest Place In the East Village on Saturday for my weekly DVD fix, and came away with the geektastic new Criterion release of Carl Theodor Dreyer's "Vampyr" as well as a disc called "Night of a Thousand Cats," or, if the box title is to be believed, "Night of a 1000 Cats." Upon getting home, I immediately dove into "NoaTC" for the simple reason that I knew it would contain 100% more Death By Cats than "Vampyr." I was correct in this assumption, to the point where I feel the need to disclaimer the following review with a WARNING: I love movies with Death By Cats--it's one of my favorite things ever, and this review is thoroughly tainted with this unholy passion.

In his haste to accessorize, millionaire playboy Hugo forgets his shirt

"NoaTC" is a movie about a millionaire playboy named Hugo who lives in an old monastery and picks up chicks in his helicopter in order to collect their severed heads, feeding their remains to his room full of cats. That's it--for sixty-three minutes. But... that's really all I need. I like to come up with elaborate back stories for how movies like this got made--what the hell was the pitch? I mean, I would have bankrolled a movie like the one described above, especially if I'd been drinking. But... how did the twisted genius behind "NoaTC" wrest money from investors? It's as if the director had been tasked with making a different movie and then woke up after a Hunter S. Thompson-worthy bender, having spent all the money the producers had given him and now faced with a quandary. "Well, I've got a helicopter, some stock footage of Acapulco, an abandoned monastery and, like, a thousand cats. How am I going to make a movie out of THIS?" Thus, "Night of a Thousand Cats" was born.

"Are you mad? Of course I'm not telling her she misplaced her bra!"

One of the wackiest things about "NoaTC" is the utter lack of motivation and spare dialogue. Stuff happens in order to further the plot--plain and simple. Hugo is motivated by his desire to have collection of heads in plexiglas boxes and his ladyfriends are motivated by an overwhelming and inexplicable need to get into Hugo's high-rise mustard colored pants. Let's put it this way--if some asshat in a helicopter buzzed past my balcony and tried to pick me up, I'd call the cops. I would hella-sure not wave, smile and give him my phone number. But of course, this is "NoaTC" so you do the math as to which path this follows. What dialogue exists is colossally stupid. Hugo explains his desire to collect stuff thusly: "All of my ancestors had a mania for collecting--stamps, coins, porcelains, and weapons. They covered the walls with their valuable collections, but I donated everything to several museums so that everyone could appreciate them." Really? Really, Hugo...? Your ancestors' wildly valuable stamp and coin collections were donated to museums? At another point, Hugo offers dinner to his stacked-and-braless companion with the following line: "You've never tasted anything as delicious as this. Dorgo is a great cook and meat is his specialty." The word "meat" is so emphasized that I pictured it appearing with a registered trademark next to it in the script. Either that, or IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN was written beside it in twenty-four-point type but was dropped in a moment of line flubbing.

The windup...

...and the pitch!

Also, there's a flaw in Hugo's plan, and it involves those titular cats. Once he's done decapitating his victims, he feeds the meat to his cats... and then has his manservant Dorgo burn the bodies. Wait a minute--why do you need the cats at all???? I mean, the cats are what make the movie awesome and everything, but... that's just not efficient. I'm not complaining because, frankly, scenes of Hugo hurling cats around or fuzzy little buddies nibbling on meatstuffs are what make this movie so great. [Note: Yes, I am going to die crushed under a pile of DVDs and get eaten by my three-dozen cats someday, internet--look for my obituary on Fark]

"Oh polar bear, you're the only one who understands me."

The editing is also head-hurtingly perplexing. There's a sex scene in which the couple's faces are intercut with close-up zooms on Hugo's taxidermy collection, and when Hugo declares his love for his pneumatic bikini'ed gal pal, each line of dialogue is delivered from a different shot. We're in bed, now on the couch, wait how did we get to the pool? Ow!!! I wasn't complaining during a slow-motion chase sequence where the viewer is treated to a fantastic upskirt shot framing, though. +10 points for gratuitous butt shot, "NoaTC!"

You know, when you think about it, it kind of *is* the most interesting collection in the world.

I'll confess--I have a soft spot in my heart and my brain for this movie. I love cats, I love Death By Cats, I love movies that suffocate under the weight of their own stupidness. Nothing in the "NoaTC" movie universe makes any goddamn sense, and I respect that. This is a movie that, had I purchased it in my grocery store, would have been the second-best movie I ever bought in my grocery store.

Enjoy a gallery of "Night of a Thousand Cats" film stills on Flickr.