Weirdhouse Cinema: Uninvited (1988)

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

And this is Joe McCormick.

And in this episode, our Cat Week festivities conclude. We're following up core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind as well as a midweek Monster Fact that all revolved around cats, and so we of course had to choose a cat film for Weird House Cinema this week. We ultimately had had quite a few to consider, like are we going to go with cat as ally, cat as Enemy?

What is it that's uninvited? There are many things uninvited in this film. There, I guess there's a cat that was not invited. There are also lots of people who were not invited, and none of the boyfriends were invited. Yeah, and there is there's an extra thing inside the cat that maybe you could interpret us the thing that's uninvited, like one of the people at least wanted to invite the cat but didn't realize it had a mutant thing inside of it.

Yeah, but then again, all cats are uninvited. They invite themselves. They're calling the shots here.

Cats are not like vampires. They will not catch fire coming into a house uninvited.

You may invite them, but they may not accept it. It's all up to them. So we selected this film before we recorded our core stuff to blow your mind episodes this week on the Folklora Cats of the British Isles and the Cats of Cyprus, And I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised that this film managed to line up at all with anything we talked about core episodes. But you know, we have the idea here of a cat is a kind of vengeful demon, and we have

That's right, trying to imagine Stone Age farmers getting all different kinds of animals on boats to take them across the sea to Cypress, and one of those animals would have been the cat. I guess maybe you know, despite how difficult it is known to be to herd cats, I'd imagine it's easier to herd cats than to herd foxes.

Now, now, don't be confused, though, this is not a movie you're going to learn a lot from. Uninvited is not a movie with lofty, dramatic or thematic ambitions. It is a creature feature, first and foremost, and one that subjectively misses the mark in several ways, while also succeeding in being just an amazingly fun and weird ninety one minutes of cinema.

I don't know who would say this thing misses the mark. I think this is this is like what creature features were invented for was become this.

Well, when I say missed the mark, imagine that there's there's like an archery target set up. Okay, the arrow is is fired, and perhaps this arrow we can call this arrow effective and horrifying creature design. Oh Okay, it misses the entire target. But then it's a bullseye on an adjacent target. Okay, and that's where we are, Like, Yeah, the creature in this film is not the xenomorph from Ridley Scott's Alien, I understand, but it is amazing in its own right. I wouldn't change a thing about it.

I think I am starting to get a feeling of Graydon Clark's sensibilities, and I think this was maybe supposed to be funny in the ways that it is. I think the moist puppet that appears repeatedly is it just seems impossible to me that Clark did not recognize that he had struck gold here with the potential comedic value. But that does bring up something I wanted to get

There is you might have missed it, but there is one scene where we see it beginning to crawl back in.

Oh, okay, I'm just forgotten that. Yeah, So I was wondering though, are the interior beast and the exterior beast, like, are they necessarily attached or can they fully separate? And if they separate, can they both be independently alive? Or can the exterior cat not live without the interior cat or the interior whatever it is?

These are questions we cannot fully answer. Yeah, the outer shell cat of cat thing seems to be dormant while it is killing and rampaging, and then it crawled into it like it's a cat suit, but dey sock just sitting there. Yeah, but yeah, is that part of the cat. Is it a host for this parasite?

We don't know.

I mean, the only other major bit of evidence I might turn to is the ending to the picture or the ending to the main cut of the picture, But we'll have to come back to that one.

So I want to mention I found online the Dutch VHS cover which has a couple of good taglines, one especially good one. I don't know if these would have appeared on other national packaging as well, but at least on this box. It has one tagline, which is cats have nine lives, you only have one. Nice ends with the ellipses and then exclamation one of the most cryptic punctuation combinations. Then the other tagline, not quite as good, is they paid for the holiday of a lifetime with their lives.

Hmmm, that's rather inaccurate. I don't think anybody's paying for a holiday of a lifetime in this No.

No, well, I mean I think that the Yeah, the spring Breaker characters are initially looking for a good time, but they it quickly goes off the rails. Like It's not like one of these movies where everybody's just They still think they're partying until Jason. The moment Jason shows up and wax him with an axe.

Yeah, this is not the cat thing meets love boat, as we'll get into when we discuss the plot.

Though there is some Jason similarity. Like I was thinking about how the cat often attacks and punishes people right after they have sinned or done wrong. It does sort of follow some slasher movie logic there where with the cat as moral executioner. Not in every single case. Sometimes some rather innocent people catch it, but it's mostly you do evil and then the cat kills you, right, and

Yep, that sounds accurate. Yeah, all right, Well, let's listen to just a little bit of one of the trailers for this picture, because there's, as you might expect, there's gonna be a lot of screaming and cat gowling, and we can only take so much of that. But just a little taste here.

They say cats have nine lives, you have only one. A poisonous can. Now, how is that possible? Thing's gonna invite us? And we're gonna dialogue.

Uninvited, starring George Kennedy and Alex Cord.

You'll never look at a cant in the same way again, all right.

So if you want to watch Uninvited for yourself again, that's Uninvited from nineteen eighty seven or nineteen eighty eight, depending on who's classifying it. Well, you can stream this one in a number of places. But the vinegar syndrome blu ray that we mentioned already is the ideal physical

Gunn oh Man. It's so funny, absolutely terrible.

This is one of those cases where it's like, yes, you were right to cut this theme song for the American audience.

It sounds like the theme music to a one season running sitcom from the eighties.

Yes, it's terrible, like kat Thing was going to have his own his or her own TV show.

Yeah boom, but doo do do so?

Yeah, this is a great disc. I like yourself many years ago, rented this from Video Drome, the video rental store here in Atlanta, and you know, as I was returning it just yesterday, I ran into a couple of listeners and had a delightful little conversation. They were from out of town. I'm not going to name them here because I didn't clear that with them when I was chatting with them, but it was nice to run into

That's a beautiful thing.

Yeah, so there's a non zero chance you'll run into me there, but you know, don't count on it. You might catch me. All right, Let's talk about the people behind this film, starting with the director, the writer, and

I think I hear it with the cadence of Raydon Chong.

Yes, yes, that too is probably influencing it.

So.

Grayton Clark was born in nineteen forty three American director and writer that you might remember from past Weird House Cinema episodes because we've covered two of his pick before, both from nineteen eighty Without Warning, which was our first episode of Weird House Cinema. And then we subsequently talked subsequently talked about the return, so we talked about a Graydon Clark proto Predator film as well as a cattle mutilation thriller.

I think both of those movies have some ironic sensibility, but they were both more straightforward attempts at horror than Uninvited. I think Uninvited is he's cutting loose a little bit more than in the other two.

Yeah, and I think it may be attempting to check off some extra boxes, especially for international distribution, Like this one has a certain certain amount of, I would say, especially in the US cut kind of a PG sexploitation quality to it, but in a weird way, like it was like it was written and conceived for the most part by like a twelve year old, a.

Lot of bathing suit antics.

Yeah, bathing suit antics, and like, yeah, well we'll get into it. But it has this kind of weird PG quality that I really like. I mean, yeah, it's seen plenty of exploitation films that are a whole lot sleazier, and it's nice to encounter one that has pulled back somewhat. So Graydon's Clark. Other film credits included let's se a pair of black exploitation films. Seventy three's Tom and seventy

I had forgotten that Graydon Clark did Final Justice, especially since we just recently rewatched the Mystery Science Theater of this one man. Final Justice is so much it is not anywhere near as fun of a movie as the three Graydon Clark movies we've done on Weird House. It is a step or two below.

There's no speciative elopment to that one. As I recall, it's just an international cop film starring.

It's just Jodn Baker running around Malta in a sheriff suit that almost looks like one of those old Nashville country music kind of outfits. Yeah, and just shooting bad guys. And I remember he gets into prison like twelve times in the movie. Yeah, that one.

And there's as I remember, the main thing I remember from Final Justice, of course, is there's this great shot like through Jodan's arm, Like you're behind him and he has his hands on his hips and we're shooting through the gap between his arm and his side. It's ridiculous. Yeah, it's a little thing sometimes.

Unfortunately I had to remember it's not from Final Justice. It's from Mitchell that has that great rift in the in the mst where he's like digging around in the shower in his apartment and there they go, what does this thing do?

Jodn rest in Peace, Yeah, recently passed, but yeah, he was. He was always a fun screen presence. All right, Let's see other films worth noting from from Graydon Clark. He did a couple of films that were made in post Soviet Russia ninety two's Dance Macabre and ninety three's Russian Holiday, nineteen eighty three video game sex comedy named title Joysticks, a nineteen eighty nine skinhead movie, ninety four is Dark Future, and his last film, Star Games. In nineteen eighty eight.

Most to oh weird that John Kedyin wasn't in the movie we watched today, since he is in.

Most films, he was shooting three other films at the same time simultaneously. I say so great and Clark films are generally not consider good movies by most people. Virtually none of his films crack five stars are above out of ten on Internet movie Database. Not that that means anything really, but these are B movies, often with a certain and exploitive air to them in one way or another, but they often strike that perfect cheesy movie balance.

You know.

It's a film that's for the most part competently made in involving talented professionals, but a film that also makes wild swings and doesn't land every punch, or at least not in the way they were intended, but still results in a very watchable and entertaining ride.

If I have a technical critique of Uninvited, the biggest one is that too many shots are taking place outside on a boat and it is so windy it is hard to hear the dialogue.

Yeah, apparently this was a tough shoot because on one hand, there it's like NonStop cats. So they had a number of cats playing the one cat in the picture and cats. If you've ever if you know anything about animals and film, you know that cats are notoriously difficult to shoot. Everyone generally is like, yes, bring me a dog.

Any day.

A dog will hit its mark and do what you want it to do.

You know. Horses are also a known commodity.

Cats you can try, you can see what you can get out of them, but it's a wilder element, you know, like cats. With cats, it's like working with you know, I don't know one of the more difficult actors and out there, I didn't even know if there's a proper analogy,

I wonder if longtime directors could do a comparison, like what is more difficult cat versus the most notoriously difficult actor is like Lawrence Tierney or something like that. You know which one is more stressful on set? I don't know.

There's probably some crossover there in the experiences.

Oh.

The other difficult thing about the film thost Courses. Most of it is shot on a boat. And I didn't even think about this, but this is something the cinematographer pointed out in one of the Vinegar Syndrome extras. Like that meant that when they're out on the boat, they only have so much power, and that limits how much lighting they can use. Yeah, and cats don't necessarily like being on a boat either, so that also constrains their performance. But cats, they was a this was a decision by

Now this makes me wonder what was the thematic seed of the film, Like, what is the core element that they were trying to get down to. Is it boat? Is it like this has to be a boat movie and everything else was around that or was it obviously you're saying it's not cat, but I guess it would have been maybe a mutant creature from a lab. Is that the core? Yeah?

I think the core was we're going to shoot it on a boat, and we need a mutant creature. We want to hit that sci fi horror zone. Okay, and yeah, everything else they just kind of figured out from there, including you know, first finding the boat, then finding people to wrangle the cats, and they did use them to understand, like a proficional professional cat wranglers here, this is not just getting me a boat, give me some cats. So

The exterior killer cat is very cute, and if they were switching them out with lookalikes, I couldn't tell. It always looked like the same cat to me.

I want to mention really quickly that the individuals involved with the puppet cats that we see it's it's Jim Bolden born fifty six and Debbie Bolden.

And these two.

Did like animal artificial animal effects on a number of other films, including Loaded Weapon one from ninety three, Aceventurro When Nature Calls from ninety five, and a ninety one White Fang film.

So did they do the rhinoceros that gives birth to Jim Carrey one hopes?

Yeah, yeah, they were animal makers inc. I don't know if they're still around, but they were active for a little bit there in the late eighties and into the mid nineties. All right, let's get into the human actors a bit here. So I want to divide things up into factions here, Okay, because essentially we have two main factions and then an individual suspended between the two. We have our corporate creepers, and then we also have our spring Breakers.

That is pretty much it. You've got your I guess the Springburger is supposed to be like early twenties. I think a couple of them mentioned being in graduate school, so like grad students and adjacent friends who are just looking to party, looking to go to the beach and have a good time. And then yeah, you've got these Gordon Gecko types who are out there just trying to run some greasy deals and get away to the Cayman Islands with the suitcases full of cash. Yeah.

And the leader of this faction is wall Street Walter Graham. This is our sleazy, yacht owning, womanizing, money laundering employee, abusing, charismatic millionaire dirt bag. Compare him to any contemporary figures

She wrote.

His film credits include sixty nine Stiletto, seventy two Is the Dead Or Alive, eighty one's Goliatha Waits, eighty four's Jungle Warriors with John Vernon and Sybil Danning, and ninety five's Hologram Man.

I have several thoughts about, well, all of the corporate characters, but especially Wall Street. Walter Graham here is the big boss of the corporate schemers, and he he has a great look. For one thing, he has this just really iconic mustache. Yes, But another thing I was thinking about Robert I holed up a picture for you to look at here. So this is supposed to be set on

Yep, yep, yep, He's wearing a sweater. George gets kind of windy at night.

I guess so George Kennedy, who will get to in a minute. He wears a suit jacket like the whole time. Everybody else is just wearing bathing suits. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just it's he it's what he's comfortable in. I don't know, Okay, Yeah, maybe he's cold blooded, you know, he's the whole cold bloody Wall Street type.

Yes, he is reptilian.

Well I think a cord. Yeah, just completely nails it here. He's believably charismatic and sleeezy. It's a fun performance. And you can't wait for this guy to get killed by the cat thing. Yeah, and they save that for toward the end. Yeah, it's good, all right.

Now.

His right hand man and muscle is Mike Harvey, and he is played by the legendary George Kennedy, who lived nineteen twenty five through twenty sixteen. George Kennedy, of course, won the nineteen sixty eight Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Cool Hand Luke memorable performance there. His TV credits go back to fifty six and he did a lot of it, including seventy five episodes of Dallas.

Movie Wise.

Many of you might remember him from nineteen eighty eight's The Naked Gun and its sequel, but he appeared in all manner of projects big and small, prestige and schlock. So, for instance, you'll find him in sixty three Charade, sixty five's The Sons of Katie Elder, sixty seven's The Dirty Dozen, seventy five is The Eiger Sanction, and eighty one's Modern Romance.

I was a little confused about what his power level relationship is to Wall Street Walter Graham. There's another guy we'll get to in a second who's definitely a henchman like Albert, who we're about to talk about, is definitely Graham's henchman. Can't quite tell with the Mike character here.

Yeah, because at times he's speaking to Wall Street Walter Graham almost like they're equal, like their partners, you know, bossing him a little bit and reminding him about what's important.

Yeah. So yeah, right.

Hand man or partner. I think you could maybe push it in either direction.

There's a good scene where he it doesn't quite get fully bitten off, but it looks like for a second his leg is getting bitten off by a cat.

Yes, yeah, he gets he gets a pretty early attack, all right. And then yeah, Albert, this other character, who, as you said, is definitely a hinchman of some sort. I thought maybe he was like a money man, like he's something. Maybe it's the glasses through me.

Yeah, it's weird, strange character. So this is Albert, played by klu Gooliger who lived nineteen twenty eight to twenty twenty two. I love klue Gooliger and a lot of stuff. He's the boss of the warehouse in Return of the Living Dead. Yeah, if you remember that, he's got a funny role where he gets called in by his employees because oops, they accidentally got a zombie in the warehouse. And you know, there's one scene where he's having him open the door. He's like, you open the door, I'm

That's a good point. Yeah, Yeah, there's some definite comic wrinkles to this character. So Klute Gooliger lived nineteen twenty eight through twenty twenty two, and his career can essentially be divided into two distinct phases. So his initial TV heavy career this included a co starring role on as Billy the Kid on The Tall Man from nineteen sixty through sixty one opposite Barry Sullivan from Planet to the.

Van Okay, one of the Spacemen.

Yeah, he did one hundred and four episodes of The Virginian plus he did all sorts of other TV shows during this time period. But then later in life he essentially became a horror movie staple in his own right, actually, beginning with seventy three's The Mystery in Drachioa's Castle, but really kicking into high gear in eighty five with both a Nightmare on Elm Street Part two and as you mentioned, the Return of the Living Dead.

In Nightmare on Elm Street Part two, he is either the main character or the main character's friend's dad. I think he's the main character's dad, And there's a funny scene, if I'm remembering correctly, where he is attacked by a possessed parakeet.

Oh wow, I don't often see that in these Nightmare on Elm Street highlight videos that people put together online.

Not a lot of highlights come from part two. That's not no, I don't know. I think that one has been maybe assessed a little bit more favorably in recent years. It does have a cool scene where Freddy like cuts open his own scalp and peels it back to reveal his brain.

Oh all right, Yeah, that's why I don't think I ever saw that one. Yeah, I think I've mainly seen the original from Wes Craven, parts of some of like the Dream Warrior era films and What New night Okay, maybe I've seen I've seen New Nightmare, and then I've seen the remake.

They did several years back. Nightmare two is has been notable for a long time for having pretty overwhelming homo erootic themes, which for a long time I think was sort of treated in the fan community as more a source of comedy because they were seen as unintentional, kind of unintentional, almost taken as like a kind of Freudian

Interesting, interesting, Maybe I should check it out, all right, So after a Return of the Living Dead, Gooliger here and Let's see eighty six is Hunter's Blood eighty sevens From a Whisper to a Scream, as well as The Hidden eighty nine's Teen Vamp nineteen nineties, The Willies ninety four's puppet Master five. His son, actor and director John Gouliger, also cast him in his two thousand and five film Feast,

Oh, didn't catch him in the Tarantino movie I.

Helped, Yeah, he's I think it's just a very small role cameo. It was like in a bookstore or something. I do not remember spotting him, but he was in there.

Okay. So those are all the bad guys, all the corporate creeps, but we also have a cast of more likable characters, the characters of varying likability, the spring Breakers, the twenties things that were just out looking to have a good time. Yeah.

I'd say out of the spring Breakers, we ultimately only have like one really likable character. Yeah, and that is going to be Martin. Martin is a biology major or I forget where he is in his schooling, but he is a future biologist.

They say he's a grad student.

Yeah, Okay, he's a grad student. Played by Eric Larson born in nineteen sixty seven, an American actor who also appeared in the nineteen ninety film Demon Wind and pops up in one episode of TV's Angel.

At first, the main characters of this movie are some of the last characters introduced. Did you notice that? Yeah?

Yeah, because initially we meet Bobby and Suzanne, who are a couple of really almost interchangeable spring breakers who are wearing just like what just like basically just their swimsuits and parts of an airbrush T shirt like they are spring spring spring breaking. They are spring breaking hard here.

Yes, they're in I think the starts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They say they're in fl to look into party and they are the ones who initially make contact with wall Street Walter Graham and are invited aboard his yacht to party some more, and that's how the whole thing gets going. But then they also end up meeting some random spring breakers grad student dudes on a like in a marina somewhere, and then they're like, hey, come on this boat with us.

Dudes, right, but he also for plot reasons, is like, Okay, all your brand new boyfriends can come aboard my sex shot as well. So Bobby and Suzanne here. Bobby is the curly blonde spring breaker and she is played by Claire Carey born sixty seven. Her first TV and film credit was eighty seven's Zombie High, and in nineteen eighty eight she appeared in both this and the horror movie Waxwork. She pops up as a skater in two thousand and

That sort of arena was sort of a creature effects showcase.

Yeah, creature effects like boxing movie. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Let's see.

She's also in ninety four, is on Deadly Ground, and did one hundred and forty six episodes of The Young and the Restless from ninety six through ninety nine.

All Right, so they initially are going to go on the OD, but then they also find some some cool boys to bring with.

Them, right, and that includes Martin, who we already mentioned, but it also includes Lance. Lance is the wrestler. That's his whole thing is he's a little beefier than the other two, you know, has like a lower center of gravity and is there to grapple. He is played by Bo Dremmond born nineteen sixty three. His other credits include eighty five's My Science Project and ninety one's for Linkenstein The College Years, which I don't know much about, but

He says he's been on the cover of Forbes magazine twice twice. Wow.

So yeah, Corey here is one of the least likable of the bunch. But the actor who plays in Rob Estas appeared on eighty nine episodes of Days of Our Lives in eighty six and eighty seven prior to this film. He went on to do one hundred episodes of Silk Stalk Stalkings in the early nineties, ninety six episodes of melrose Place in forty six episodes of nine oh two one Oho, and has continued to work in TV and film. It looks like he was nominated for a twenty ten

I think they should have an actor categories for best jock, best biology, major, best best Preppy.

Yes, yeah, absolutely, this would be great. If slasher movies were more in style, you could have you could have the Slashies. Maybe there is is there an award called the Slashies.

If not, there should be. Yeah, oh, I see where you could have like best nerd, best punk Rocker, best best jock, yeah all that?

Yeah, yeah, all right. So those are our two main factions, and then we have a character that is kind of suspended between the two because she's also young and so she has a lot in common with the spring Breakers, but she works for for wall Street Walter Graham because she is the captain of the boat. And this is Rachel played by Tony Hudson born nineteen sixty.

Yeah, so this is the other main good character along with Martin the biology guy. She's I would say the movie actually does a pretty good job at making her a sympathetic protagonist, especially since we meet her so late. As I was saying earlier, like the characters that we end up liking the most and are the survivors at the end are the ones we meet last.

Yeah, the film is like, we have one more blonde lady to introduce you to, and she's going to be the main one. So you can get a little confusing. Tony Hudson's credits include supporting roles in nineteen eighty four's Places in the Heart, as well as leather Face, Texas Chainsaw Massacre three. This is the one that featured Vigo Mortensen as one of the Sawyer Klan.

Oh wow, okay, you know, I think I've never seen that one.

I have, but it has been it's been a long time it was. I think this one was in many ways kind of like a rehash of the first one, kind of a a sort of a remake of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre with some you know, with some updated vibes. And yeah, that about the only thing I remember is Vigo popping up as a cannibal redneck.

This character is another reason Uninvited reminds me of Jason Takes Manhattan, because you may recall in Jason Takes Manhattan, of course it's like it's a slasher movie on a boat, but one of the main characters is the son of a boat captain who is being like prepared to be a boat captain himself. That's the same thing with Tony

So yeah, I would say this character is more fleshed out than most of the others, and it's a decent performance. I like Rachel in this picture. You're rooting for her, Yeah, even though she is forced to make some ethical compromises at top.

Yeah, the multiple times they're like, yes, somebody did fall overboard, but we can't go back and look for them. And here are the reasons.

Yeah, all right, Two more credits I want to mention. These are behind the scenes. Nicholas Joseph von Sternberg. It was the cinematographer born nineteen fifty one, son of Silent and Sound Era Academy Award nominated director Joseph von Sternberg. He did thirty one's Morocco, in nineteen thirty two Shanghai Express,

I think I have not seen Demon Warp, but have been been circling it for a while. One night that'll happen.

So the score here, I thought it was fun and effective. The main thing that really struck me is they keep using that labyrinth style synth cascade effect. We've talked about this before, it's popped up in other pictures. Did we ever determine what the name for this is?

Oh?

Were you talking about the whole tone scale? Yeah? Yeah, I think that's it. Okay, that did come up, and the listener contributed to our trying to find the name for that but yes, where it's like it's not really any actual key in music, so it produces this kind of weird, ambiguous feeling.

Yeah, I generally associate with any time Jarth is doing something in Labyrinth, we get that effect, and anytime the cat is doing anything suspicious in this picture, we also get that effect.

All right, you ready to look at the plot? Let's do it. Well. You always want to begin a movie with a strong image at the top to establish themes. You know, what should people be thinking about? And here they chose an office building? You know, there you go, Yeah, a cat office building?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean this is the last movie we discussed in Weird House Cinema also had an evil in this office building, so you know it lets us know that corporations are up to no good right off the bat.

Oh well, I guess that's true. Yeah we have we have a theme of business malfeasans. Sure. But so after this, we go inside and there are a couple of doctors examining an X ray. The bones in the image do not look human, so maybe this is some kind of animal. What animal could it be? And one of the doctors says there is a mass growing inside the subject maybe a tumor maybe a teratoma. The other the other doctor

It totally is Gradon Clark. Yeah, okay, yeah, he's now. He's only present in the intro for the US cut of the film. The international cut has a shortened intro where we don't we don't get this particular scene, but in the international version of the film, he does factor in to the outro, presumably playing a different character.

So we see a guy in a lab coat go into a room full of cages and retrieve a cat from one of the cages and bring it into an operating room. Do we need any description for our main cat other than I think this is the variety we'd call an orange tabby.

Yeah, just an absolutely adorable orange tabby. I mean, I believe multiple orange tabbies playing this one cat character, multiple feline actors. Yeah, it is an orange tabby cat. Likely male. I'm to understand most tabbies are male, though we used to have a female one. Memes would have us know that all male orange tabbies share a single brain cell, and when it's not their turn to have the brain cell, they do dumb things. I see, but beautiful cat, to

Right, So the doctors get out the hypodermic needle. Seems like they're about to sedate the cat for surgery to figure out what is that growing inside it. But suddenly it just scampers off the edge of the operating table and down the hall. There really were no precautions here, and the guy's holding it and then it just runs away, and they're like, oops.

They've never done like. They didn't even have the door shut, no doors open. Cat to the vat. They usually have the door shut.

Yes, so one of the doctors. But it then seemingly disproportionate to the level of lack of care. We just saw. One of the doctors sprints after it. The other one gets on the phone. This is a great and Clark he's on the phone going code red, code red.

U.

He calls it by like a serial number has just escaped, and he's saying, use extreme caution radiation, security radiation. What. So the cat runs down a bunch of metal stairs in what looks like a cinderblock bunker, and we see dudes in hazard suits chasing after it, the red lights flashing, sirens going off, and what do you make of this

Yeah, it looks like it. We're it's kind of like a saggy el santo. It's kind of the overall feel that I get from this, but it's frightening, and the shot we get it feels like it's the cat's point of view, like this is a terrifying image this would bring. It makes sense that this brings the monster out of the cat.

Right, So the hazarmat guy's corner the cat. One of them shoots it with a dart gun, and then the cat seems at first effectively sedated. It falls down and it's like it's going to sleep. But then as the handlers approach with a carrying case, the unconscious cat's mouth opens and a weird, smaller, much moister cat like puppet emerges from the bigger cat's mouth. And then you see blood splatter on the wall, splatter across all of the safety signs mounted on the cinder blocks. You hear screams,

Kind of kind of looks like a newborn cat, kind of like a hairball, kind of like a lion. Definitely a gromlin. Yeah, it's it's a delightfully hideous looking puppet here. And you know, maybe the hairball thing, maybe that's what they were working on at this lab. They were trying to genetically engineer a hairball free cat, and they created a cat that has like a living hairball cat inside it.

Right, the hairball becomes its own organism.

Yeah, And I can't help but suspect maybe this was subconsciously even a part of the monster's genesis and Grayton Clark's imagination. Like cats are always grow always puking up gross stuff, and so and so it's it's it's a natural step to imagine them puking up some sort of a killer cat.

So anyway, the cat once again in fluffy mode. Once again, qu scampers out into the parking garage, and here we see the two doctors pursue it, and the security guard also they run out there and they proceed with a cat hunt among the cars while the cat scampers from place to place.

Yeah, and there's gonna be a lot of the cat scampering from place to place in this film. Something one of the things that I instantly loved about it because here's the thing, like, if you've ever been around cats, you know that they have different sorts of movements and walks depending on what their aims are, you know, such

I think I think all shots are of the cat scampering to an out of view food bowl. Yeah. Yeah. There's also a good exchange where the other doctor says, doctor, oh, well, the Graydon Clark doctor's name is doctor Gray. He says, doctor Gray, you saw what just happened in that stairwell, and doctor Gray is like, shut up, about that. Just shut up about that. We've got to kill that cat. So it's like they're trying to keep something secret here.

Yeah, by the way, Green and Clark pretty good here in this little director's cameo. Oh yeah, he did other acting roles, you know, outside of pictures that he directed, so it makes sense. But yeah, I kind of liked him here.

We should sometime on the show do a list or a ranking of our favor of our directors who make the best director cameos. I, for one, really love when David Cronenberg goes goes in front of the camera. Yeah.

Yeah, Cronenberg has had some really fun ones, including Jason X where he is killed by Jason Boy.

He's very good, but also is like the creepiest character ever in Night Breed.

Yeah, yeah, Night Breed. That's what we might come back to. But but yeah, occasionally you'll get a you know a lot of directors that have fun cameos.

We're most recently talking about Corsese and oh, that's right. In Dreams first I was Dreams. Yeah, have there, But anyway, so, yeah, the doctors and the security guards are running around. The Graydon Clark doctor yanks the security guard's gun out of its whole story. He's like, give me that. He's just taking charge. But these these slobs are no match for

Yeah, just a build tension.

There's one cool shot when when it's attacking one of them where we just see a shadow, a shadow of like a cat head opening two wide, the mouth opening too wide, and then the wet puppet wriggling out in silhouette. But of it kills them all. It kills Greyton Clark as well, and eventually the cat gets outside and it runs out into the night. All right, So the next thing is we're going to meet some of our main characters.

And yeah, and again they are just dressed in skimpy swimwear and shredded airbrush t shirts at this point, it's not even clear from the context. No, they do have some luggage. They do have some luggage. I have some bags.

Yeah, But wall Street Walter tells them to leave the bags in the lobby while they go go get dinner.

Yeah, And I love that he invites them in to just dine with him at this fancy hotel with them just wearing their spring break get up, and you know, walking past all the other swells.

It just kind of like give him a little side eye over this.

So it's like he's a pig. Everyone knows he's a pig, and he seems really comfortable in that. He's like, yeah, I just grabbed a couple of young ladies, just you know, basic, off the beach, and I'm going to dine with them here.

But I also like the kind of mental shortcuts this movie is making when it has characters arriving in town for spring break and they're wearing bathing suits, like seemingly for the travel to get there. It's not like they would wear normal clothes to travel and then put on the bathing suits when they go down to the beach.

Well, the spring break bus just lets you out directly onto the beach, So you gotta be good. You gotta be ready to go right right when it arrives.

So let's see. The next scene is the part where George Kennedy include Gooliger show up in a chauffeured car. And then I had to put in a screen shop for you to look at here, Rob, what is the deal with the guy who opens the car door for them at the hotel? I guess this is a footman or a hotel worker of some companies, dressed like Midwest Dracula.

Oh yeah, he's got the big top hat. I don't know it definitely looked goofy. Though maybe it's accurate. Maybe this is exactly what was going on at fancy hotels in Florida at the time.

Fort Lauderdale Hotel doormen like they wear a big red k top hat. Yeah. Anyway, these characters here are Mike and Albert. Mike and Albert head into the restaurant to meet with wall Street Walter, and they are annoyed that he is he is getting distracted from their important crime business by trying to creep on these two women. So Walter departs with his associates, but he invites Bobby and Suzanne to join him on his yacht for a party later on. So what's the business on the yacht? Well,

Yeah, some sort of illegal money stuff.

Yeah. The guy they meet with, he's more or less like, Hey, i enjoy doing corrupt, illegal things with you, but now I'm worried about the SEC And they don't like the other guys don't like that this guy is worried about the sec He's like, what if they send me to jail? And the other guys are like, uh oh. So they get suspicious of Frankie the squealer here, and they decide that there's only one way to be sure that he never squeals. They've got to shut him up for good.

Yeah, but I mean the thing that I was thinking is like, they've got to use this hot tub later, like having a party. I've never owned a hot tub, but it's my understanding that they're a little bit sensitive and you can set them off by doing normal things that don't involve murdering people in them. So I don't know, maybe they's some They have a really good handle on the chemicals here.

Also, after out he makes Albert murder this guy wall Street, Walter is like, Albert, the party is in half an hour, So after you've cleaned up this mess here, get everything ready, will you? Like? Wow, I really hope Albert washes his hands before he puts out the crew to tay. Yeah, this is.

Why you really need a larger criminal organization so that you don't have goons that are having to do double duty both cleaning up your murders and also putting out your food.

I was only hired to kill Frankie the Squealer. It was not in the job description to put out party trays. Oh somewhere in here, there's also a random scene just where we got a check in with the cat. See what the Cat's up to? So a guy robs a gas station attendant who the gas station attendant was being nice to the cat thing. It was the guy was putting out a saucer of milk for cat thing. Cat

Yes, yeah, yeah. At this point, really we have no reason to be against cat Thing. He seems to be following his own moral compass.

So while the thieves are driving away, he's got an accomplice too. The thieves are driving away, the cat Thing pukes up itself and then attacks the driver through the back windscreen, causing the truck to crash. And this was a laugh out loud scene for me because of the sound effects in the truck scene. They had one glass breaking sound effect, you know, like a crash tinkle tinkle, which they just played on a loop multiple times as the cars the truck is rolling down a hill.

Yeah, because otherwise it's very impressive looking wreck. Yeah, yeah, roll this truck.

So now we're going to have our spring Breakers combined. We're getting to a scene that has some of the funniest dialogue developments I think in the movie. So there's like a scene at a restaurant patio overlooking a bunch of docks with boats tied up, where we're going to meet our boy spring Breakers. These are Lance and Corey, and they're hanging out together edge a table. Cory is of course reading the Wall Street Journal, and Corey says

Yeah, scene missing on the party. We'll see the aftermath of the party later, but the big it seems like it just consisted of them going out drinking and dancing while I guess Walter and maybe his men like watch.

On unclear, Yeah, unclear. Yeah, So the ladies walk up to the boy's table and they ask if they can sit down, and the spring Breaker boys are thrilled, but then uh oh, here comes the drag. Their friend Martin comes to join the four of them, and Martin is the biology major. He's like, hey, guys, yeah, I can't find any place to stay. The whole town's booked. And Corey's like, not now Hedgeworth. I guess that's Martin's last name,

Yeah, this isn't one of those classic why are these people friends?

Moments? Yeah, yeah, exactly, the jock, the Wall Street journal guy, and the biology major who only two of them seem to like each other. Yeah, but anyway, after this, okay, so literally, I've told you everything that has transpired between these people, so I didn't eve anything out. Yea. So the girls they sat down. The boys are like, hey, this other guy is sitting with us. They have not introduced themselves to each other, they've not traded names or

And they're just like, Hey, we're going out to sea with this guy, who you know up clearly doesn't have any ulterior motives, so come along with us. He'll surely totally accept just three additional random dudes coming as well.

Well. Suzanne introduces a logic here though. So clearly Bobby and Suzanne are interested in this guy because he's rich, he's got a yacht, he can take them on a vacation. But they're also not sure about him, so they are recruiting some help here from these guys. Suzanne says, you can help us handle this guy if he gets out of hand. But then I was like, but why would they have any more reason to trust these guys than

I guess is that what they call it swimming in the raw?

I think that means skinny dipping. Yeah, so obviously Bobby is interested in swimming in the raw with Lance and he's like, oh yo, and Corey dreamily. You know, he's got Wall Street journals in his eye and he goes, I am really going to meet Walter Graham. So our spring breakers make their way out to the yacht. On the way, they hear some meowing coming from inside this big storage bin on the docks. They go over and open it up and there's the cat Yeah yeahs in this box.

Yeah, we didn't get every leg of cat Thing's incredible journey, but it managed to wind up here just as this crew is about to board the yacht.

Oh wait, but there is a thing I forgot to mention from earlier when the cat was watching Wall Street Walter's limo pull away from the hotel, almost like it was scoping him out. M you remember that? Yeah? Yeah? Why though? Yeah, it's well, so we've established that the cat thing not always but usually attacks people who are sinful, and so because Wall Street Walter is a particularly awful and odious human being, maybe it's like drawn to him

Mm. Yeah, or maybe he knows even more, maybe he knows that Wall Street Walter is a majority stakeholder in the pharmaceutical corporation that created Cat Thing before.

Wants to destroy him. That's a good theory.

I'm basing it on absolutely nothing, but that's what I'm pulling out here.

Well, wait a minute, this is a time for a good sidebar. Actually, what do you think is the intelligence level or sentience of the cat Thing? There are many things it does throughout the movie that almost feel strategic, but the way they're filmed, it never makes it really clear.

Well, my answer, which is also going to be a little vague, is that it clearly has Grimlin level intelligence, so it can do things that are smart and clever, but it will also do things that are sneaky, even if they're stupid. So it's just it's just straight up Grimlin level intelligence, like standard Grimlin, not brainy Grimlin from Grimlin's too, but just like standard Grimlin intelligence.

Maybe this actually comes back to they all share one brain cell between them, and then the cat thing is in possession of the of the universal orange tabby brain cell. Then it quickly becomes sentient and it can strategize like this, but then it again disappears. There you go again.

The memes tell us this, so it must be true.

So our spring breakers. They pull the cat out of the box. Martin removes a collar from its neck that says genetic laboratory, and he reasons from this that it may have come from a genetic laboratory. Then Suzanne fall in love with the kitty cat. She's hugging it, and she insists they've got to bring it with them on the boat. But like, what if this is somebody's cat? I don't know, I mean, I guess the collar makes it look like it's a lab animal, but still so yeah,

And so this is why he is cool with these guys coming on board, because they're going to serve as the crew as they make their escape fleeing the SEC on their way to the they went down on their way to the Cayman Islands, that's right.

So Rachel is sort of stuck here in the in the boat, captaining the situation, because does tell me if I'm getting some details wrong here. I think the way they explain it is it used to be her father's boat, but her father got in debt or something and lost the boat, and then he died, and she is now working as captain of this boat until she can buy the boat back from wall Street. Walter is that that's how I understood it. Yeah, and he like wall Street.

Yeah, it's a fun plot hook, you know. I could see he's working in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign easily.

So it's anchors away, and of course the cat is coming along. Walter also does not want to take the cat with him, but Suzanne is like, but he's so cute.

Yeah, and they're like, it's good luck to have a cat on board, which that's right.

Yeah. So this is basically the end of the first act. The pieces are all in place, and for the rest of the movie, the cat will begin to gradually pick off the characters on the boat while the humans try to figure out what's going on and react. So maybe we'll now go a little bit less chronological and just pick some scenes to focus on. The first night there on the boat is kind of party night where everybody's drinking and dancing, and there's a scene where everybody's gathered

Yeah, yeah, this is completely unbelievable, Like what is dancing? Like what do people do when they hang out? Let's try and create it here for the camera.

So let's talk about the death of Albert, the clue Goolager character. So Albert is supposed to be steering the boat. Rachel gives him instructions and leaves him there. But Albert, well, he's steering the boat. I think he gets bored, and so he gets a bottle of wine out of a cabinet and he's supposed to be driving, but he's getting drunk. He's talking to himself a lot. He's like, oh, Albert, you're the captain now, You're the captain now. And he's

I got the sense that the old clue here is just hamming it up as much as possible before his inevitable death scene.

Just having a belt of wine and singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Then Rachel comes in and relieves him, after realizing that he has steered them far off course. He's like, get out of here. So clue Gooliger goes out wandering around on the ship and he I think he's looking for a storage box that has more booze in it. He opens one up and the cat's in the box. He's like, hey, cat, get out of the way, that's my wine. It gets the wine out and then he uncorks it and has a bunch and spits it on

Same, I was like, he is about to mutate into some sort of abomination and now we're gonna have like zombies on board and a killer cat or is he going to turn into some sort of like wear cat thing or something. But as we'll find out, this is just the cat thing. Then I'm doing its work. It's like a high speed lethal cat scratch fever that drives you mad with pain and then the only solution to your pain is to leap into the sea and die.

That's right. So unfortunately, klue Googliger does not turn into a cat person instead, it's just like his veins explode and he falls into the water splash. Yep. Now, in the aftermath of this, Mike and wall Street Walter find the blood everywhere, but they cover up Albert's death because Walter just wants to get back to the party and he's like, we don't have time for this. We'll sort this out after we're free. And then the next day Mike and Walter act all surprised when it's discovered that

He's kind of like, like, you get us to the Caymans, I'm going to have so much money. I can just basically sign this boat over to you. And you know, if she she knows that this isn't right. I mean, Albert is missing and they should turn back and look for him. But she she is, you know, seduced by money here and by by the boat ownership. So Walter is able to sway her to his side and she's like, all right, we'll keep going.

They also, I just remember this. They also convince her by dying and say that saying that Albert couldn't swim, so there is zero chance that he's still alive.

Yeah, So she factors that into it and still sides with money over going back and looking for him.

But Martin and Rachel are more inquisitive about what's going on here. So Martin takes a sample of the blood do they find on the deck, and he examines it with what equipment a sextant, A sextant, you know, for navigation. He uses like a lens on the sextent in combination with a magnifying glass to look at the blood and he's like, my god, this blood is at least five hundred times more bloody than any blood I've ever seen.

So set, Yes, sever's right through the achilles tendon. There's a lot of screaming. Yeah, he's hitting the floor. And now, at first, what I was watching this, I couldn't tell if the other characters were supposed to see that cat thing did it because cat thing kind of comes out underneath the furniture and attacks. Which I have to say is this is a very unbrand.

For a household, reaching out from under furniture.

Yeah, reaching out from underneath something and attacking the feet. My feet are attacked on a near daily basis by my own cat, but never gets me quite this hard. There's never splurting blood and screaming. And of course my cat, not being a mutant, also doesn't have venom that makes my veins explode.

That's right. So what happens here is the bite seems a lot worse than a cat bite could normally be for some reason. They're I mean, I guess it's just duty to treat whoever. But they're trying to help out Mike after he was just pointing a gun at them, and they're like, what's going on, Mike, And he's like, well,

Yeah, I thought again, this is gonna be another cat thing bursting out of George Kennedy's chest.

But it doesn't happen. I think that was just another vein exploding. Maybe that was his heart exploding or something, I guess. So at this point, Rachel and Suzanne try to go radio for help, but wall Street Walter pulls a quint in Jaws. Here he shoots the communications equipment and he's like, you won't be getting in touch with anybody. But fortunately Rachel and Suzanne get the upper hand. They like blast him with a fire extinguisher and they get

That's right, Walter is captive and they've just got to steer this ship to safety and justice.

Now what other scenes should be mentioned? As things things go on, the cat will continue to attack various members of the I was gonna say the crew people on board the ship here, there's one weird subplot where the cat infects all of the food on the yacht with cat with like vein explosion venom. Yeah, and this kind of reminded me of the like the scenes in the Thing or like the Thing is getting to the blood to taint all the blood so they can't test for it. Mm yeah. Yeah.

And I think there was a scene in Alien where the Xenomorph gets into their food. Maybe it was a deleted scene, but it's one that I've seen mentioned time and time again when when fans are debating how quickly as Xenomorph grows and what it may or may not have to eat to get to that point.

There's one scene eventually that was an amazing, like laugh out loud moment, and it's the it's the Lance makeout arm scare scene.

Yes, oh god, this is so good. This is a scene that, as we describe it here, it may sound grotesque and and uh and I would say in bad taste maybe with a with a with a touch of cruelty to it, but the way, but that's just not the nature of this film. Like it ends up just being laugh out loud, funny and just so over the top ridiculous.

So what happened, Like Lance and Bobby are making.

Lance was the one who was shot by Mike, so he's, you know, he's still recovering. He's he's maybe recovering from that that gunshot wound. He's in bad he's in bad place.

They're kissing and he's like, I can't feel anything in my arm.

Yes, like my arm's really numb, and so she moves a towel off of the hand of that arm, and then we see that cat Thing is just munching on his fingers. It's like munched all his fingers off, and there's just blood everywhere, and of course Lance screams and from there, I mean again, this is a very fast acting mutant cat Thing venom. Lance very quickly like loses his mind and is convinced that his only hope is to jump off the ship to his death.

And I think Bobby goes with him.

Yeah, Bobby's like no, and then goes with him, and then she's dead too.

So that's the end of them there.

We should note that, you know, the girls were nice to cat Thing, and so far cat Thing has not directly attacked either of the girls.

That's right. It has only bitten the boys. Yeah, the corporate creeps and the boys. Yeah. Though I will say to comment on whether the cat punishes immorality or not, Lance has been a little bit mean to the cat. But Lance actually hasn't been that bad in terms of human behavior. You can imagine a jock in the spring Break movie being a much more terrible and obnoxious character. He's just a little bit annoying to the other humans.

Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. Now, in the in the midst of all of this, what we also have Corey, the preppy character he like is he's running a side deal with Walter. There's like a scene where Walter the prisoner now kind of seduces Corey back over to his side let me show you something like that, but I don't remember the details of their deal.

He invites Corey into Corey's in there like, wow, you know, I thought you were great Wall Street Walter, but it turns out you're You're a real joke that like you at all. And while Street Walter is like, let me change your mind. Come look at my wall safe. I've got money and Corey's like, oh, money, but I don't I don't think now I've forgotten this detail. Is Corey gonna go for the deal? I don't think so.

But doesn't Corey then agree to a plan where they're going to put out poison for the cat.

Yeah, they're going to try to kill the cat. Yeah, but that's in his interest too, that's in everybody's interest on the boat. I mean, so he's going to put out poisoned food around the boat so that the cat will eat it and die. That's his plan, though he actually Lance is not killed by the cat. Lance is killed by his own clumsiness because he's like carrying a gun around and he's in the engine room and he shoots something that blasts a bunch of steam on it.

He's trying to shoot the cat, hits a steam pipe and the steam just blasts them. By the way, from the effects, it's clear that this is like like fire extinguisher or something and not steam. But then but then we cut to this like horrific makeup effect on Corey where he's just been completely scalded to death, and it's pretty horrific. After seeing all these all these shots of the cat thing puppet emerging from the fake cat head.

So eventually the only passengers left alive on the yacht are Rachel the captain, Martin the biologist, and wall Street Walter.

Oh, we forgot about Suzanne. Susan and still on board, eats poisoned cat food, yes, and then her veins explode.

She thinks that the cat food is not poisoned. She like breaks into the pantry and eats a piece of bread and she's like, they were lying to me, it's not poisoned. It's fine. But then Hugh and yeah, her veins explode.

But again not directly killed by the cat.

The cat is watching her when it happens. They do like to watch. Yeah, so there is then there's a storm. There's a storm, and the boat basically starts sinking. There was another part where it's hard to explain why this was so funny, but Rachel is like, there, you know, the hull is damaged. We're taking on water and then it just cuts to a wall with like a clean, sort of softball sized round hole in the wood, and there's like clearly a hose on the other side of it, just gushing through.

Like, how did did the cat do this? How did this happen?

I don't know, but it's really funny. And so the boats sink and Rachel and Martin they get away to a lifeboat. I guess they're trying. Walter is going to come with them, but he tries to save his money. He's like, no, I got to get all my briefcases of cash, the silver briefcases. Yeah, loading up these silver briefcases full of wads of cash, and he's like, gotta go back for another briefcase of cash, and you know what, He's going to be killed by greed. It's like it's

Yeah, It is amazing. If you decide to watch Uninvited and you find yourself becoming a little bored and you're tempted to turn it off, don't turn it off. I would recommend just watching it, but if you must, at least fast forward to the end and watch this final sequence in the lifeboat, because it is it is just absolutely inspired B cinema.

So they're in the lifeboat and then the the killer cat thing puppet starts popping up out of the water and attacking them on the boat. So like grabs Martin and he's like ah ah and wrestling it away, and then Rachel's like, oh no, did it bite you? No, I'm okay.

Oh there it is again and is back in the boat coming at them. It's like, oh, I mean, it's just troll. Two levels of awesteness. And it reminds Actually, my wife made this connection first because I had to show where this ending.

She didn't watch the whole film, but I'm like, you gotta watch the ending.

And she said, it's just like the moment in the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror where Homer gets his hands stuck in the toaster.

Again. Yes, like Dad, it's stuck in there again. Oh, it's one of my favorites. It is. It's exactly that energy. And then the way that they defeat the cat is so good.

Well, the whole logic ground. So they're like, the cat is only jumping in here after us, because this is the only thing floating in the area. We should throw the suitcase full of millions of dollars out into the water and then the cat will be forced to float on that.

But first they dump out the millions of dollars.

They well, let's get the money, let's get the money out first. They did have that moment of clarity, I guess. But then yeah, they throw the briefcase out and the cat puppet cat thing is just setting on the floating briefcase. I don't know why he couldn't jump into the boat and attack them a third time and a fourth time. At this point they're able to leave it behind again in a lifeboat that is not propelled by anything except

So evil wall Street Walter got his Comeuppins and his co conspirators. Unfortunately, many innocent people perished along the way

Yeah, and they're like, yeah, sure, go for it. You two need a vacation after all that. So it seems like our heroes, our survivors, are are on track for a happy ending here.

Yeah. Though I guess Captain Rachel is not going to get the boat she wanted. Maybe she's going to get a different boat.

Yeah, I think she'd want a different boat after all this, you know what a blood bath boat that's I'm probably still poisoned by the cat, the mutant cat that was running them up and boarded.

I guess they're competing interests there, Like it has sentimental family values kind of a legacy yacht, but also it was where the cat Thing killed all those people.

I don't know, but you, even though we have a essentially a happy ending here, you need something a little more on a sci fi horror movie like this, you need a little like bump bump bump action. You maybe setting up for a sequel, but at least leaving you with an uneasy feeling that things are not going to be okay.

Two twist ending. Now there's the theatrical twist ending. The one I know is the one on the beach. Is that the same one that was in your version in the theatrical yet? Okay? Yeah, so wait, well why don't you narry what happens here?

Okay, so we get a nice beach scene. I believe what is the name of this beach? This is actually a California beach that a lot of stuff has been shot on. This is not Florida, but on this beach we see, oh here washed up is the silver briefcase again that used to have cash in it, that was emptied and it was the last place that we saw cat Thing. And then here is a little boy walking along on the beach. This is actually Graydon Clark's son,

The child holding the cat. Well, the cat was more mutated than anything Martin the biologist had ever seen, so clearly he could mutate its coat too. So yeah, that's why it looks different now.

Yeah, or it is a parasite that found a new cat to occupy it.

I don't know.

Either interpretation I guess is valid.

But what was the deal with the alternate ending? Was there like a European cut?

Yeah, so it's a different twist ending. And remember in this version, we don't see Gray and Clark at the beginning of the film as a doctor. Instead we see him here at the end. We're at the marina there on the dock, and the child brings this suitcase to the father or assuming it's the father played by Graydon Clark, and he's like, oh, what's his suitcase? Let's open it up.

Put it up.

They put it up there on a table. Open it up, and then we get a jump scare of cat thing, the puppet version, jumping out of the briefcase at us the audience, and we get this you know, awesome like snarl growl sound that it makes throughout the picture, and then freeze frame and then we cut to the credits with that horrible theme song playing over it. The theatrical version has just you know, the scary score from the picture. International version gets that horrible uninvited theme music.

Yeah, well that's uninvited. That is.

Yes, it gives us a lot to think about about about humanity's relationship with cats. No, it doesn't really give anything to think about it. It is a but it is an alarmingly good B movie, this one. This one has a well deserved following among B movie and Schlot fans. So if you like quote unquote bad movies, if you like cheesy movies, this one's worth picking up. It's I mean, it's again, it's got some fun performances in it, it's competently made. On the whole, It's very watchable. I don't

I just remembered I think I rented this in the same batch where I rented Night Beast. Oh, that all comes together as like a really good, really really good video drome hole for me.

Yes, Night Beast is incredible. And by the way, if anyone out there, if you happen to be in the Atlanta area and you're going to Monster Rama this weekend, there's going to be a showing of Night Beast as part of the track there. Yeah, they're also gonna there has shown some other films, including some that we've talked about on the show. Here, Queen of Blood is gonna

All right, I guess we got to wrap it up for today.

That's right, we're wrapping it up. This is the end of cat Week.

But write in.

We would love to hear from you. What what are some of your favorite weird films that feature cats? Cats as enemy cat as cat says ally, it's all fair game. We'd love to hear from you. Just remind that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. If you are on letterbox dot com, head on over to our profile.

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