Night of 1000 Cats

Night of a 1000 Cats was not the masterpiece of Mexican exploitation I expected it to be, but is still a solid little gem of low budget filmmaking. Hey, René Cardona Jr. is directing it, and Hugo Stiglitz plays the lead, and thats all I needed anyway. As usual Hunky Hugo plays a rich playboy womanizer, but in this film he is a little more psycho than usual. He lures women to his old gothic mansion, makes sweet love and kills them. He feeds his hungry cats with their bodies, but preserves their heads and adds them to his "collection". No reason is given for Hugo's deviant behavior and his "minimal face expression" approach to acting certanly isn't helping us understand the character. We do get ordinary "I want you to stay with me forever. FOREVER" -clichés thrown in our faces, but they don't make much sense since Hugo seems to be a well-adjusted fellow with no social problems. The other problem I had with "1000 Cats" is the same one that another commentator pointed out: it's very hard to separate Hugo's women, since they all look pretty much alike and all share the same (minimal) personality. The film's constantly moves in and out of flashback, which only adds to the confusion. So, here we have an underwritten, underplayed (but hunky!) character killing what seems like the same woman over and over again. The characters in the film just doesn't work, (except for Hugo's mute butler Dorgo, the mad monk. Right on!). The film could have been slightly faster paced too.

So, what DOES work?

First of all, this is a René Cardona Jr.-flick and it is my firm belief that everyone of his films are worth watching, at least once. His films always have a certain "feel" to them, that I can't explain but enjoy very much. They all have that little extra something that seperates them from similiar (some say identical, but what do they know?) films. Although low budget productions, he always manages to squeeze the best out of his pesetas and present a good looking, well edited and charmy product that delivers the goods, whatever they might be. "1000 Cats" is no exception. In many aspects, it's not what it shows, but what it doesn't show that makes it work. Sure the characters are flat, and the story doesn't make sense, but at least it's everybody and everything is nice to look at, fairly fast paced, well crafted and directed. Just imagine how awful it COULD have been if none of those components would have been there.

Maybe I'm in a forgiving mode, but:

6/10

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

Sophisticated, international playboy, Hugo (Hugo Stiglitz) loves women. He flies around in his helicopter, wearing enormous sunglasses, while various females smile like they've got coat hangers stuck in their mouths.

Hugo hovers. He zooms.

He takes women back to his fortress-like bachelor villa / monastery, where his faithful servant, Dorgo (Gerardo Zepeda) awaits, looking as though he spends his days inhaling oven cleaner.

Inside, Hugo shows off by tossing cats like beanbags, into their enclosure. Soon, it's time for Hugo to unveil his collection of severed heads. He's a man of many talents. Murdering his girlfriends for their noggins is one of them. This allows him to feed their bodies to his cat swarm. Hugo doesn't believe in being wasteful.

It's not long before he's airborne again, hovering over women and their swimming pools. They can't ignore his subtlety, since he floats three feet above them!

They want to go with him. They must go with him!

Yes, he rides a motorcycle too. It allows him to hover closer. Hugo is persistent, and always gets his female lover / head donation / cat food. Hugo is a haunted man. He only loved one woman. Her head is his favorite. All of his "girlfriends" have one thing in common: Their heads are more productive in their plastic boxes than they were on their shoulders!

THE NIGHT OF A THOUSAND CATS must be witnessed by every living being!

Hugo waxes philosophical! He plays chess while smoking his pipe! He hovers over more swimming pools than an Olympic diver! He is irresistible to women! The pointlessness of this movie is beyond measure. Is it a metaphor for life itself? Only Hugo knows for sure.

P.S.- I want a villa / monastery! I want a Dorgo! I want a thousand cats! Where's my helicopter? Let's fly!...

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

This movie should be called Night of 1000 Hours of Helicopter Scenes. If you want to see some sick guy spend twenty minutes flying a helicopter, then somehow seducing a woman by buzzing around her house and stalking her, then maybe you would like this walking disease. Also, instead of 1000 cats, more like 70, and during the climatic end scenes, only 10 cats, with the same scene shown over again until you want to puke. Only good for making fun of. The one redeeming thing about this film was the video I saw it on was made out of yellow plastic, I had never seen that before. In conclusion, I would rather have toxoplasmosa than see this again. Thank you.