Lily C.A.T.

Inspired by Alien, The Thing and the novel Forever War.

The first time i saw this in the early 90's I loved it and I recently re-watched it (2002) and still loved it, it lost a bit of it's surprise though. The characters start get knocked off pretty quick, but the animation is good for it's time. Like Aliens series...then watch this!

Lily C. A. T. (1987) is a movie I recently watched on Amazon Prime and tells the tale of a space expedition that includes people who don't know each other from all over the world. Shortly after their expedition starts they discover there's some people on the ship that weren't intended for the trip. When people start dying the people will need to work together to try and figure out who the stowaways are, even if they know they may be working with the people they're trying to find.

This movie was directed by Hisayuki Toriumi (Gatchaman) and contains the voices of Masako Katsuki (Ninja Scroll), Eiko Yamada (Metal Gear Solid), Chikao Ôtsuka (Lupin the 3rd), Yoshiko Sakakibara (Ghost in the Shell 2.0) and Tesshô Genda (Akira).

The animation for this was classic 80s and reminded me of a not as good G. I. Joe. The ghost/monster elements in this were pretty good and entertaining. There were also some good kill scenes and gore. The storyline was just okay and felt like an Alien knockoff a little. My favorite part of the movie was the cat.

Overall this is an above average addition the genre that is worth seeing once. I would score this a 6/10.

I first watched this anime back in the 90's when the scifi channel actually showed a bit more variety and such having anime weeks, Godzilla weeks and for a short span having Mystery Science Theater 3000 on their station. I enjoyed it then and I recently re-watched it as I was in the mood for a scifi horror hybrid that was not Alien. I originally wanted to watch the original 1987 Nightflyers as I had only seen it on the same channel I saw this on originally and I was hoping to see an uncut version, but I struck out on Amazon Prime and several other streaming networks only pulling up the recent television show. Just was not into watching a television series so I thought about this movie and tried to see if it was available and it was! I was so surprised and happy so I gave it a watch and I still enjoy it.

The story has a spaceship that goes on an expedition to a remote planet to gather samples and such. The kicker is that the trip will take 20 years, so the crew will be in a suspended animation for that time and will only age a year. The captain is a veteran as is his crew, but the ones on this expedition and not part of the crew are from a corporation. They all have their reasons for going on this mission; unfortunately, two of them are not who they say they are. The captain dismisses this at first, but it is not too long after they awaken from their suspended animation that one of them turns up dead! Seems a strange bacteria has gotten on board and it begins killing the crew, it also morphs and becomes an even bigger problem as it has the ability to kill! However, this is not the only problem as something seems to have control of the ship and seems to be trying to cover up its mistake of taking on this alien bacteria!

While good, the anime is not perfect...though the main problem I have with it is the English voice overs which is not really the fault of the original makers. Most of them do all right, but at times they do a horrible job of portraying emotions, most notably when the blond falls on her knees and begins sobbing. That being said, this film gets points for being only an hour and seven minutes long and still able to develop its characters and have lots of action. Kind of wish more American movies were capable of this.

So, not perfect, but still a fun and wild ride. It does take a lot of inspiration from Alien and The Thing, but it adds its on spice to the dish as well as it truly is not just about the creature on the loose. It adds a touch of mystery as there are the two members of the crew who are not who they say they are and the mystery of who is controlling the ship. Some of the characters are dubbed poorly and I would like to see this with the original voice actors; however, the one doing the captain did a pretty good job and he was my favorite character.

This movie caught my attention because the plot sounded similar to Alien and The Thing. It was very heavily inspired by those two movies, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The movie took elements from those two and created its own story. The story itself was very interesting at times, but unfortunately the short run time made the pacing way too fast, plot wise. There were several scenes of the crew members bickering amongst themselves, and the interesting reveals were very short. For the story it was trying to tell, it would have been better to be 2 hours long, rather than 70 minutes. I would have liked to see more about the plot lines that gave more character development, rather than the action scenes. It was also unfortunate that you never even got to see what the planet they were trying to get to looked like.

The animation and music were very typical of the 80s, something you can't really knock points off of for. The voice acting was pretty good, I liked all the different accents each character had, depending on where they came from. The design for the cat, Lily, was also very cute and realistic.

If you are a cat/animal lover, be warned: Lily the cat does die. She dies in a horribly gory and disturbing fashion. She's sucked into a wall and her body explodes into a mess of blood and gore. Once you see her owner crying and freaking out while facing a door, it's going to happen.