Hello Kitty

When the Persian Ed Wood makes a genre film that includes a cat, you don't have to time me to see how quickly it gets added to my Netflix queue. "Long wait" or no, it is mine. 

Quick Plot: Bruce has been spending some time in a mental asylum following the death of his mother, whose home nurse Susan (Sybil Danning) went on to marry his wealthy father Rachid less than a year later. Declared sane (despite an incredibly inappropriate sense of humor that often sends him on fits of maniacal laughter), Bruce returns to his father's mansion to an unhappy Susan and helpful Ezil, the housekeeper whose favorite song is the first two lines of “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.”

And a cat. Oh yes. A cat.

Samson, you see, was Bruce's loyal little tuxedo. When he went away, Samson declared feline war on Susan, prompting her to exile him but like any darned cat, he returned...the very next day. When Bruce comes home, Samson is eager to impress his master by resuming his battle. 

...which is filmed as this adorable animal actor waves his little paw around while Danning screams bloody murder and someone loops a ferocious hissing. 

It. Is. Wonderful.

Samson is on to something, as Susan has been plotting with her lover/husband's chauffeur Ralph to kill the old man and take his fortune for themselves. Ralph does the deed by forcing Rachid off his yacht in the middle of the ocean, classily giving his boss a choice between death-by-bullet or the slight chance that he can survive in the water and potentially return for a sequel that includes an extended flashback sequence about how he battled sharks and sold his voice to a sea witch.

Okay, I'm getting a little carried away with my zany plotting, but it's not that far off from what actually follows in Cat In a Cage. Spoilers will commence, because honestly, you need to know what goes down.

After Rachid's death, a man wearing a werewolf mask murders Ralph, burying him on the mansion's grounds which Samson rather inconveniently digs up when the police stop by. Later that night, Susan is heavy breathed on to death by the same Bruce-like man who, in the clumsiest exposition ever ADR'd and played over two characters walking on a beach, turns out to be Bruce's violently insane brother Ali, who was hidden in the house for twenty years and taken care of by Ezil (who’s seen trouble). 

This plot point comes up one hour into the movie.

Terrified that the cops will rightfully arrest his murderous secret brother, Bruce grabs Ali, Ezil, and his girlfriend Gilda (played by Yvette herself, Colleen Camp, in a role so thankless that I'm guessing her only payment was the chance to sing the lounge-esque theme song) and embarks on a neverending police chase and shootout. 

If you're like me, you're sitting there on the edge of your seat begging to know the most important question of Cat In the Cage: WHAT HAPPENED TO SAMSON?

How I long to tell you. How I long to know.

See, after Samson uncovers the corpse of Ralph, he simply vanishes from the film, sort of like Mark Ruffalo in The Kids Are All Right. Considering he's easily the most interesting character in the film, it's unforgivable. 

I don't mean to suggest that Cat In the Cage would be any better with Samson saving the day or firing the last shot or being revealed to actually be Ali as a shapeshifter. I mean, those twists would make this movie amazing, but still...not good. 

This movie was probably never going to be good.

If the name Tony Zarindast rings a bell, then you just might pronounce the word "werewolf" with a mumbled mouth, for he is indeed the director of that 1995 film wonderfully riffed on in one of the SyFy Channel-era MST3K's best episodes. Zarindast displays the same level of skill here, coaxing wonderfully alien performances from his cast and rolling out his story with the grace of a drunk dad untangling last year's Christmas lights. 

Pretty much everything in this movie is done terribly. Take the score, which for no reason whatsoever, sounds like it should be used to set the scene in The Mummy Theme Park. 

Side note: Cat In the Cage is, admittedly, a better movie than The Mummy Theme Park. But so is the experimental short my cat shot on my iPhone when his paw landed just right, so it doesn't say much. 

High Points

Well, aside from the gentlest cat attack put onscreen? I love a date montage, and Cat In a Cage gives us not one, but TWO, and both go on just a hair short of Cool As Ice's 12-hour epic

Low Points

Of all the things I could complain about in this movie, what does it say about me that the one that bugs me the most is that the title is so darn misleading? Unless, of course, my theory that Samson is actually Ali holds true, at which point, it's a literal metaphor and it makes this the best movie about a mad man turned into a cat turned back into a mad man ever made

Lessons Learned

It's natural to be quite disturbed over your mother's death

Nothing turns a murderous ex-nurse on more than being slapped

Just because you've named your villain Susan doesn't mean supporting characters can't call her Suzanne

Rent/Bury/Buy

Cat In the Cage is a terrible movie. And if you're here, you probably love terrible movies and will probably have as good a time watching this as you would eating an ice cream sundae. Dig in. 

Sliver Me Timbers

Ah, the early '90s, a time when R-rated thrillers were a thing, Billy Baldwin was considered a sexy thing, and Joe Esztrerhaus could make millions of dollars by writing R-rated thrillers that let Billy Baldwin tease the world with showing his thing. 

Quick Plot: Carly Norris is a successful book editor and unhappy divorcee. Things perk up when her application for a fancy modern high rise is accepted. The only catch? She's inheriting the apartment of a late lookalike who was either depressed enough to leap from the 23rd floor or unlucky enough to be murdered there.

The neighbors are an eclectic bunch: a lovably nosy old man quickly befriends Carly before dying alone in his shower. A coke-headed neighbor seems to flirt with the same men Carly fancies until she ends up murdered, possibly by one of them. The suspect list is small: either Jack Thompson (Tom Berenger), an impotent mystery novelist (whose impotence is mentioned about 17 times over the course of 100 minutes) or Zeke (William Baldwin before the goblin transformation), a hot young video game designer who also happens to own the building.

It doesn't take too long for Carly to fall hard for Zeke. Together, they work out, have load acrobatic sex, and disgust fellow diners at fancy restaurants by throwing lingerie back and forth.

They are pretty much as insufferable as they sound, only more boring.

Oh! But he's also a voyeur who has planted hidden cameras inside every apartment in his building.

And yet, he's still...really...boring.

Let's get the first problem out of the way: Billy Baldwin is sort of kind of playing the Sharon Stone Basic Instinct role, only he's no Sharon Stone. More tolerable than Stephen, and yet still a far, far cry from Alec, it's hard to ever feel much of anything for his Zeke. It's not entirely his fault. Director Philip Noyce introduces him as a sort of charming rogue, only to rather quickly turn him into a mildly obsessive creep (though the movie doesn't seem to see that itself) and maybe vicious killer, or maybe not, or maybe ...well, the truth is, by the very end of the movie, I have no idea what I'm supposed to think of him or what he did or didn't do.

Sharon Stone's Carly fares mildly better, but possibly only because if nothing else, her character is best friends with Colleen Camp's gloriously loud-talking Judy (WHY ISN'T THIS MOVIE ABOUT HER?). As I said way back with the slightly less dull Deadly Blessing, the woman has always had star power that any camera adores. She does her best with an absolute nothing of a role, but it's a shame that following Basic Instinct, this was the best she could get. 

Noyce doesn't make an incompetent film, but he sure does make a stupid one. While everything you'll probably read about Sliver will focus on its voyeuristic obsession, the film takes a full ONE HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES before it becomes any real plot point. Worse, Sliver has no idea how to contextualize it in any way for its characters. Carly is disgusted when she discovers Zeke's habit for all of 60 seconds before she decides it's hot and something SHE'll be obsessed over until it becomes dirty and something she needs to make a grand statement against because huh? 

I won't get into the spoiler territory of the murder mysteries, only one (out of three) of which is officially solved (we're left wondering if one was an accident or murder, providing you remember anything that happens in this movie by the time you get done with it). The film is apparently very messily based on Ira Levin novel, which isn't surprisingly when you see that the screenplay comes from the pen of that sultan of class, Joe Eszterhas. Those looking for Showgirls levels of fun will be sorely disappointed.

Those looking for a heartbeat will be worried.

High Points

The only real saving grace of Sliver is its incredibly time stamped '90sness. Not only do we get the kind of darkly lit, partial-nudity containing sex scenes, but we're also gifted with choker necklaces, Pearl Jam references, and the very simple trick of having a character under 30 be a video game designer. Buy some Zima and have yourself one phat drinking game!

Low Points

Everything else?

Also, screw any movie that wastes the talents of the insanely wonderful Polly Walker, aka the underrated Rome's Atia and pre-Cersei Lannister evil goddess

Lessons Learned

Life is boring if you're not a dirty old man

Everybody has a telescope!

Women are usually not overly impressed when they first discover you've been filming them in the privacy of their apartment

If you don't want people to think that you're a murderer, wear something other than black ski caps when indoors

Rent/Bury/Buy

Oy. If you have a soft spot for sexy '90s thrillers, Sliver has a lot to offer. If you have standards for storytelling, Sliver is probably going to make you want to throw your underwear at the TV (not in a sexy way; more to make some kind of statement against VOYERISM or something). It's available to stream on Amazon Prime, and while I don't necessarily regret watching it (because I do not have standards when it comes to storytelling) I would never tell anyone I actually like to do so. It's stupid. But sometimes, that's okay (but seriously: this is stupid, and this is me speaking before the Jolly Rancher-spiked Zimas).