Movielogr
The Night of a Thousand Cats (1972)
Directed by René Cardona Jr.
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Overview
Millionaire playboy Hugo flies around Acapulco in his private helicopter to pick up sexy young women. He whisks them away to his secluded old castle, where he wines and dines them. With the aid of his bald, mute little helper, Dorgo, he kills his dates, keeping their heads in a crystal cage and feeding their chopped up body parts to his 1,000-strong army of bloodthirsty, flesh hungry cats.
Rated R | Length 63 minutes
Actors
Anjanette Comer | Zulma Faiad | Hugo Stiglitz | Christa Linder | Tere Velázquez | Barbara Angely | Gerardo Zepeda | Jorge Russek | Delia Peña Orta | Marcelo Villamil
Viewing History (seen 1 time)
| Date Viewed | Device | Format | Source | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 03/27/2020 | TV | Streaming | Video on Demand | 3.5 stars |
| (Average) 3.5 stars |
Viewing Notes
I’ve always wanted to see this so I was happy that it popped up on my recommended titles on Prime. This is the US cut which clocks in around 65 minutes. I looked it up and the original cut is 91 minutes. But I watched it anyways.
So the positive: I love the look of old grindhouse flicks, the general aesthetic. The castle reminded me BURIAL GROUND. Just weird yet appropriate set design for a creepy millionaire living in an old Mexican castle. Secondly, this was ripped from an old (35mm?) print so it has all the scratches and speckles giving it that grindhouse feeling (none of that fake shit you see in new movies trying to replicate that effect). It ends there because the movie is not good.
Firstly I had to believe that there was no ASPCA, MAP or Humane Hollywood Initiative to monitor the treatment of the cats. I’m sure a few died during the making of this, which sucks. Even if none died just having hundreds of cats locked up in a cage together is unpleasant to see. So that’s not good.
Secondly, this is a rather dull movie where the creepy collector zooms around Acapulco picking up beautiful women only to murder them for his collection of trophy heads. The premise is fine but it’s just done so awkwardly and dull w/the creeper being more stalker and really having no clear reason to do this other than to feed his cats the human bodies.
So I did a little research to discover why this US cut is 65 minutes. Initially I thought it was heavily edited to remove nudity/sex but there’s nudity/sex in the US cut. Then I figured it was probably around the cat violence and possibly some inhumane treatment. That’s not either. Apparently all the footage removed was really just deadweight footage of the helicopter flying around around along w/the aerial footage. Also there was a nonsensical opening sequence was presumed to be filmed after the fact to punch up the runtime. The 65 minute cut, by all estimates, seems to be just the main scenes/sequences so nothing is really missing except the fat. So I suppose that’s a good thing despite the movie in either incarnation not being good.
This would be a good movie for B-fest as there’s plenty to laugh at and plenty of dry moments even in the 65 minute cut. A good audience could have a lot of fun with this one and it would be more entertaining (the unpleasant cat images notwithstanding).
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