Night of 1000 Cats

This is a strange and plot less movie about a psychopath (Hugo Stiglitz) who flies around Mexico City's poshest neighborhoods in his helicopter picking up sexy, bikini-clad women whom he then takes back to his castle where he has sex with them, murders them, pickles their heads, and feeds the remains to the titular "mil gatos" that he keeps in his basement.

Director Rene Cardona Jr. never made what could really be considered a "good" movie in any sense of the word, and this one is especially inept. A serial killer isn't exactly going to be too inconspicuous flying around the ritzy suburbs in a helicopter. Hugo Stiglitz was probably a lot less irresistible to women than Cardona Jr. seemed to think he was in movies like this and "Tintorera". And if one wants to dispose of bodies, a few good-size hogs would do the job a lot more efficiently (and quietly) than 1,000 yowling cats. Also, I might point out that the action of this movie takes place over a lot more than a single night, in fact very little of the action even happens at night.

Basically though faulting the movie's frequent lapses in logic is really missing the point. What Cardona Jr. seems to be trying to do is string together a lot of visually interesting scenes with the slenderest plot strands imaginable, making a movie that is about half avante-garde and half exploitative trash. Unfortunately, some of these scenes aren't too interesting to begin with (the helicopter footage) and some just go on too long (a strange interlude where the killer watches one leggy would-be victim doing a showgirl routine). Some scenes, however, are pretty interesting--especially the scenes with the cats. And as usual Cardona Jr. has lured a number of pretty European actresses (Anjanette Comer, Cristine Linder) to Mexico to swap bodily fluids with Stiglitz and become cat chow. I hope they at least got a nice Mexican vacation out of it!

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.

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

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.

There are some scenes where real cats are used cruelly -- He dunked a real cat under water in a swimming pool -held it down, throwing a real cat... if they had of used fake cats then I would not have minded - we get the idea that the guy is cat crazy and cruel at the same time without hurting real cats. I do NOT believe in hurting real animals over a freaking film.

Yea I would have liked this one a little better without the cruelty... and so many helicopter scenes (that's how he does it, flies around in his chopper to find women to woo, kill and feed his cats plus himself).

Once with this film is enough for me... I barely made it to the ending with him being cruel to real cats.

1/10