Can’t do a horror film festival (insofar as this is such a thing) without some Hammer… albeit if you want to be picky about genre, I suppose this is probably more thriller than horror, and apparently there’s been debate over the years as to whether or not it’s even a Hammer film. Technically it’s actually by an outside company called by BHP, a small concern who needed co-producers to actually make anything, so they teamed up with Hammer who wrangled funding from Universal and provided some of their regular cast and crew… Hammer in turn needed something to fill a double bill slot after another production fell through, so they just redressed some sets from Curse of the Werewolf (the other half of said double bill) and everyone was happy. It’s not overtly based on Poe’s “Black Cat” but it has certain similarities; a slightly cranky old woman is murdered by her servant in conspiracy with her husband and their other servant, but unbeknownst to them Tabitha the cat witnesses everything and she is not happy, and as the film goes on she becomes an increasingly vexing presence. The film was made in black and white, which is a bit of a shame cos Bernard Robinson’s set design looks like it would’ve been delightful in colour, though it still looks fine in monochrome; it’s a small film and a B-movie in most respects, but John Gilling has a good cast to play some frankly unsavoury characters, and obviously the cat is adorable as hell while it’s monstering them. Good stuff, whether “strictly” “Hammer” or “horror” or not…
You must be logged in to post a comment.