La maldición de Cathy

Possessed by the spirit of her aunt, who died in a childhood car accident, a young girl acquires supernatural powers in this strange Canadian variation on 'The Omen' and 'The Exorcist'. The film gets off to a mediocre start with a poorly edited, intertitle-heavy exposition segment that tells us the circumstances by which the aunt died even though it has little bearing on the plot. The film improves somewhat as it cuts to decades later with an expressive Randi Allen well cast as the young protagonist who gradually progresses from using foul language to becoming totally unhinged as the movie plods along. The doll that she finds (and which supposedly leads to the possession) is pretty creepy too; same goes for a painting upstairs with glowing eyes. Unfortunately none of the adult actors here are up to Allen's level. Beverly Murray is particularly over-the-top as her overbearing mother and the less said about the man who plays a constantly coughing drunk who she befriends the better. The biggest issue (or 'curse' if you like) with the film though is that it never really makes up its mind what it wants to be. There is no tangible motivation driving the possessed aunt and a lot of what Allen does comes off as weird for the sake of it. The film does benefit from a pulsating music score and refreshingly minimal (decent) special effects, but to what end here is uncertain.

I'm not sure what the goal was with Cathy's Curse. It's a mix up for The Exorcist, The Bad Seed, and about a million other evil kid movies. The wintery atmosphere is a nice touch and, for a bit, one could be fooled into thinking this might end up being some lost 70's classic. Nope.

Cathy's Curse manages to get everything wrong from the hammy acting to the not-so-special effects to Cathy's "curses" that she hurls at people. "Cow" can't quite compare to some of the insults Regan threw at people in The Exorcist.

Don't let me confuse you - Cathy's Curse also has a lot to recommend. It's rarely boring and with such a short run time, I could think of worse ways to kill some time.

A lot of the IMDb reviews for Cathy's Curse mention the lousy VHS picture quality, but the copy I found online was actually rather good, making me wonder whether the film has since received the remastered treatment for DVD or BluRay. The film itself, however, is still a steaming pile of amateurish garbage, and why anyone felt that it deserved an upgrade is a mystery to me. Still, there are quite a few laughs to be had at the expense of the community theatre cast, the woeful special effects, and the total lack of film-making acumen from director Eddy Matalon.

The film opens with a father arriving home to find that his wife has left him, taking their young son George with her. His daughter Laura has been left behind, so daddy pops her in his car and drives away at speed into the snowy night (where he's going is not explained). When a rabbit runs in front of the car, the man loses control and crashes the vehicle, which goes up in flames killing the occupants.

Scoot forwards a few decades, and George (Alan Scarfe) moves into his old family home with his neurotic wife Vivian (Beverly Murray) and their daughter Cathy (Randi Allen). Exploring the house, Cathy finds a portrait of Laura and the dead girl's old rag doll, after which she begins to act very strangely, playing 'car crashes' with the neighbourhood kids, and attempting to poke out a girl's eye with a nail. She also develops supernatural powers, including telekinesis, teleportation and the ability to make food go rotten in seconds.

A local medium, Agatha (Mary Morter, putting in a truly awful performance), suspects that something is wrong, but Cathy sends her flying out of a first storey window, which causes Vivian to have a breakdown. George leaves Cathy in the care of creepy handyman Paul (Roy Witham), who gets plastered, after which the girl makes him hallucinate (rats, snakes and spiders). When Paul decides to burn Cathy's rag doll, she kills him (but only after he delivers the hilarious line "Go on, you filthy female cow-make us laugh!").

More weird stuff happens, none of which makes any sense. No explanation is given for Cathy's newfound powers, but one assumes that she is possessed by Laura's spirit; why Laura is so malevolent is never made clear. What is abundantly clear is that this lame Exorcist inspired Canadian horror is inept in almost every way imaginable, but for fans of z-grade trash, it'll be just about worth a watch for the unintentional LOLs.

Even though this film is cheesey and uber-low budget, it's not too bad. Although many of the scenes are more than shades of The Exorcist, Omen, Carrie, and The Fury, there are some unique moments that gave me the shivers (such as the snake-and-rats scene and when Cathy appears and disappears before her mother on the steps). The low-budget, grainy film quality and super cheesey "score" are at the same time distracting and effective, and although the gore quotient is modest, it's gross fun when you get it. The editing and story are a little loose and sloppy at times, but not so much that you want to give up on the film. Sometimes, these weaknesses create an (I'm guessing) unintentional ambiguity that adds to the spooky fun.

In my world, haunted kids and (even more so) freaky-looking dolls are always the makings of a good horror film. This film has both in spades. I found it on Brentwood's "Possesion" 4-movie DVD set, which is a steal at $8. Don't expect winning performances or slick effects, but check it out if you want some good B horror movie fun.

Cauchemars (nightmares in french, no "e" in word) was made using the tax credits afforded by Quebec and Canada governments; even if in co-production with France, it was made in English, in Westmount (rich English section in Montreal) with a ridiculous budget(The production co. doesn't exist anymore). Acting is really bad (but I suppose acting direction was also!). This is a bad "b" movie. Only for collectors of such genre (90% of action evolves in or around the house!). French actor Hubert Noel, who played the role of the doctor, dubbed the voice of Prentiss Hancock in the french (Quebec) version of Space:1999. You can find this movie in DVD collections (like 20 movies on 10 double-sided discs). Won't make history...