La noche de los mil gatos

This movie was recommended to me by an ardent lover of the sick and twisted. I thought that the worst was given away too early, and the film does get caught up in the tedious and seemingly unlikely hunt for new victims. Yet, the film is brief, and does offer enough consistency in characters to allow the genre fan to dispense with realistic expectations. It's not a bad psycho-killer flick - it's horrificly bad.

The Night of a Thousand Cats (1972)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Hugo (Hugo Stiglitz) is a millionaire playboy who flies around in his own helicopter looking for beautiful women. He puts the women into the helicopter with him and takes them to his house, which is also the home to hundreds (not thousands) of cats. He then brutally murders the women, puts their heads in his collection room and feeds the rest of them to his cats.

René Cardona Jr. is best remembered for some rather strange and crazy films but THE NIGHT OF A THOUSAND CATS has to be one of the weirdest. In fact, this movie is just so strange and bizarre that I'm somewhat shocked that it isn't better known by cult fans. I'm not sure if there's an alternate, longer version out there but the one making the rounds on various sites clocks in at just 62-minutes.

There's very little plot going on in this film and in fact there's very little that actually happens. Throughout the short running time we see Hugo flying around, spotting the beautiful woman, picking her up, showing her his home and then we see them killed and fed to the cats. None of the murders are overly graphic but the director loves showing the chopped up bodies that are being fed to the cats.

That there is pretty much the only thing that happens in the film. Over and over the exact same thing happens and while the film is somewhat poorly made it's just so crazy that you can't help but enjoy what's going on. I certainly haven't seen a movie like this before. On one hand you can bash that plot-less film but then again you have to respect a sleaze movie like this that just gives the viewer the same thing since the director obviously believes that's what they want.

THE NIGHT OF A THOUSAND CATS has a few scenes towards the cats that will offend those who love the animals so those people should be cautioned. With that said, the film is certainly a unique one and fans of cult films should enjoy it.

The inimitable Hugo Stiglitz and his trademark cheekless beard prowls the sunny skies of tropical Acapulco in his private chopper, stalking impressionable damsels to date, strangle and subsequently feed to his thousand-head cattery.

Hugo always looks most comfortable intertwined with the body of some lusty European/American (imported) actress on the other side of her hey day, and his frequent collaborator Rene Cardona Jnr delivers a smorgasbord of tail for him to plunder in this somewhat Gothic-psycho- sex pic.

As an aimless, expressionless (another Stiglitz signature) independently wealthy playboy, he randomly courts four or five women of various nationalities (it's difficult to keep count), but his piece de resistance (almost literally) is the yummy-mummy Anjanette Comer, whom he hovers above whilst her well-to-do husband (Russek) is off earning the dough. Temptation soon becomes too much for her to bear, and so another opportunity emerges for Stiglitz to add to his pickle-jar collection.

Fantastically absurd with a plethora of bare butts and tan lines, copious amounts of cognac, a pantry full of severed heads and the incessant meowing of a thousand hungry felines to clear up the scraps. Simple and mildly effective lusty Latin horror.

Eccentric tycoon ladies' man uses his private helicopter to prowl female rooftop sunbathers. Once he gets them to his crumbling stone mansion for a dinner date, he sexes them up before adding them to his "collection"(a row of glass jars containing pickled human heads...the victims' other remains are fed to his pit full of ravenous kitties).

This is actually a semi-stylish junkyard horror outing with a few effective sequences. The story, however, is rather convoluted and comic-bookish...more discerning horror fans may find the goings-on a bit juvenile. That said, I still maintain that this is worth a look, especially if morally unsound oddities are your bag. With a bit less restraint in bloodshed and boob-shots, this could have been near-classic stuff.

5.5/10

I don't know if it was me, because my friends had the same problem, but I had the hardest time figuring out who was who in this movie. I could determine who Dorgo, the monk guy was, and I kinda knew who the helicopter guy was, but all the women... they all just ran together into one big woman. I had the hardest of time distinguishing between all the women that helicopter guy was with through the course of the movie, because I really think they were all the same actress. The married woman with a kid who looked like Cher, the woman on the roof who made hand signals at the guy in the helicopter, the woman Dorgo killed. Arggh!! Who were half of these people?!

I thought this was a pretty messed up movie. The only part that actually had any coherence, was the last scene, where the head of the helicopter guy was imaged in the last glass box, beside all the other heads in the glass box. Though the cats couldn't put his head into the box, the camera could angle his head into the box. Other than that... C.R.A.P.

I don't want to talk any more about this movie, I just want my money back.

**Final Judgement* Dorgo is my new hero** Good day