The Uncanny (1977)

 "I thought I saw a pussy cat? I did! I did!"

This is a film, a portmanteau horror produced by Milton Subotsky of the sort that had become somewhat unfashionable in the UK by 1977 and so produced in a late 1970s Montreal which can't help feeling a bit David Cronenberg, about how cats are evil. Cat lovers, like myself (we are owned by four, and they are indeed our rulers), may not quite agree that cats are evil- we love them and they love us; they are not so aloof as popular myth dictates, they're just introverts- but, well, they can be little bastards at times.

This film may be full of animatronic cats and dated effects, and it may be the very epitome of the '70s; it may, indeed, suffer from too much a focus on cats as its means of horrifying the audience... but, damn, it does so bloody effectively. Peter Cushing is superb in the framing sequence, but the portmanteau structure allows for a pleasing mix of British character actors in period roles and canadian actors in the modern day. Donald Pleasence hams it up disgracefully, one is forced to admit, but this doesn't fail to add to this little film's considerable charms.

This could, I suppose, be seen as a tired and lesser version ogf the earlier Amicus portmanteau horror films, especially with its restrictive theme. It seems to have flopped at the box office, a fact which I attribute to fashion as much as anything. But the cast, the Canadian element in the late '70s when David Cronenberg was making Anglo Quebec a nucleus of cinematic horror genius. This film may be a relic from a sligfhtly earlier era, but it surfs that wave with aplomb.