THE UNCANNY
Cushing at his most pathetic and pussified
You know, Cushing was so damn tiresome when he played a cowering ninny. How could somebody who was so good at instilling terror so often settle for roles where he's its victim?
Everybody gets a little pussy in this movie, where cats glare threateningly at people and little paws come out of nowhere to slash human flesh.
Cushing plays a writer of controversial "science fact" or whatever...and his latest theory is one that, really, most of us already subscribe to: that cats are evil and possess scary powers. His publisher ain't buying it, so Cushing tells three tales to try to convince him.
The first story's okay, nothing special. An old spinster leaves her estate to her sixty-eight thousand cats instead of her sole surviving relative, her nephew, so her chambermaid (in cahoots with the nephew) tries to steal the offending will...but it's guarded.
The second story's the weakest of the bunch, set in Quebec (there's yer problem right there - did anything scary ever come out of Quebec?). A little girl and her feline friend move in with an impossibly cruel/indifferent foster family - the sister in particular being cruellest, and with the help of black magic, the girl gets revenge. It features the funniest damn exchange: "Mummy, if Lucy can have a cat, why can't I?" "Lucy is allowed to have a cat because she doens't have a Mummy or Daddy." "If you and Daddy were killed in a plane crash, could I have a cat then?"
Makes you wish it were prophetic and involved the model airplane.
The third story's probably the best, with Donald Pleasance sporting the worst hairpiece I've ever seen that wasn't in a Motley Crue video. He walks a fine, fine line here between hamming it up outrageously and just not being very good at all, but I think he comes across well. He plays a horror star who engineers the "accidental" death of his costar so that his girlfriend can take the role, and the late actress's pussy ain't gonna lay down and take it.
Features some of the most awful puns I've ever heard. The actress has been killed by one of those bladed-pendulum thingies, and she's said to have "gone all to pieces," and that she's "just a bit player", and yes, that "parting is such sweet sorrow."
Not really recommended for anybody other than die-hard cat fanciers.