John’s Horror Corner: The Uncanny (1977), a horror anthology about cats.

MY CALL: Intensely stupid but delightfully fun horror anthology about cats.  IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH:  Some other fun, decent and/or clever anthologies include (in order of release date):  Black Sabbath (1963), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), Creepshow (1982), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985), Creepshow 2 (1987), Tales from the Dark Side: The Movie (1990), Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993), Campfire Tales (1997), 3 Extremes (2004), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Chillerama (2011), Little Deaths (2011), V/H/S (2012), The Theater Bizarre (2012), The ABCs of Death (2013) and The Profane Exhibit (2013).

This is an anthology of three intensely stupid but delightfully fun feline stories tied together by our storyteller, an eccentric writer who believes that cats are highly intelligent, evil beings pulling our strings from behind the curtain.

London, 1912, Death by a Thousand Scratches.  An old wealthy, childless woman with far too many cats chooses her pets over blood (her nephew) when emending her will.  That’s right.  The cats get everything!  This evidences the notion that those with the greatest (and, perhaps, unhealthiest) affection for cats are those who use them as emotional surrogates.

This woman’s housekeeper conspires with the disinherited nephew  to steal the will.  But the cats aren’t having it!  Clips of cats running down stairs and jumping from landings simulate their assault of the villainous housekeeper, who is increasing scratched and bloodied between shots of rather calm looking cats.  It’s really bad and completely unconvincing.  It gets worse when the cats have her trapped in the pantry, as if waiting out her food supply until she must emerge to accept her clawed fate or starve to death.  Anyway, she gets hers and we get some fun, brief gore.

This might be the very least sophisticated British production ever made.

Quebec, 1975, The Cat Came Back.  A young girl with a black cat and some books on witchcraft moves in with her aunt.  Her cousin Angela (and new housemate) is jealous of the cat and becomes abusive, making for something of a wicked stepmother and stepsister resentment.

One day, much to her twisted daughter’s delight, the aunt takes the cat to be put to sleep.  But, somehow, the cat “comes back.”  Then, evidently under the cat’s advice, Lucy performs a ritual that turns Angela into–ummm….cat food.

Selfish 12-year old bitch gets hers!

Hollywood, 1936 .  After covering up his wife’s murder as a prop accident while filming a movie, her cats avenge her.  This was the least entertaining of the anthology’s short films.

“Cat got your tongue?”