The Cat with Hands

This short features an older man who tells a young silent man all about the frightening local legend of a strange hungry beast that seeks to make itself more human piece by piece, and which is said to have only one last organ to add to make itself complete, and as it turns out the old man should have been more careful of the company he kept... I never really appreciated this early short by Robert Morgan before, it's not a hugely mindblowing sick fleshy animation like his grotesque masterpiece Bobby Yeah is, but watching it now I really love the folklorish, dark fantasy quality that it has, it's very rustic and oldie world looking and it has a wonderful lyrical vibe that gives it the feel of a grim visual poem that perfectly sets itself up and ominously closes in a short but satisfying amount of time. The animation and the live action parts really go together great to me, the animation highlights the more fantastical elements and gives it a viscerally mystical feel. And oh my what a truly bizarre creation, it reminds me a little of the monster from Jeepers Creepers, but I kind of liked this one better! The cat as it first appears looks like a bizarre chimera of cat and man, kind of cute and harmless as it licks its human fingers, but then you see it devour a child and growl and it morphs into something much more monstrous and predatory, when it has the boy's face it looks positively grotesque and nightmarish, very unsettling and unnatural, you wouldn't want to pet it, and you'd never want it anywhere near your lap! And at the end when it looks completely human and unexpectedly rips the tongue right out of the unsuspecting man's mouth and stretches its own mouth to inhuman proportions in order to eat its poor victim alive and then sings in his voice, it's really spooky and weird! Is the hungry cat-thing finally done now that it's a whole stolen person at last or will it never stop eating up the unwary in its human guise? Grim ghastly fun and magnificently put together, this pleasantly creepy fable is one of Robert Morgan's best and really shows that he had his own particular brand of whacked out animation magic from the start! "With an artful of cheer..."

The CAT WITH HANDS is hands down (pardon the pun!) one of the most disturbing stop motion films I have ever seen, and I am quite familiar with the opus of Jan Svankmaier and Cyriak(though the latter's works are not technically stop-motion but a kind of video editing strongly reminiscent of it). And I mean this in a good way!

The movie delivers unmatched atmosphere which gives the horror an unforgettable edge. And though the story recalls old folk tales which were meant to scare the bejesus out of children, it appears to be original, too. The central concept reminded me a little of that of THE THING (1982), my favorite horror film.

I would have loved to see a full-feature version of this fairy tale. Still, for atmospheric horror fans, this short is a can't miss.

I'm a big fan of Robert Morgan, and he succeeds to impress with this short film. The unnerving and downright strange nature of the entire film puts the viewer in a weird and vulnerable mood, establishing the atmosphere perfectly for what is to come. Morgan is a master of nightmarish stop motion flicks and in The Cat With Hands you'll see plenty of said technique. The human, live-action clips are almost unnecessary (I almost like the Pilot version better), but they do a good job in rooting the story in reality, giving it a bit of a background and meaning, and they do a very good job at showing the contrast of real life to the nightmarish land that depicts the cautionary tale in action. There's something extremely unsettling about Morgan's work and in this film it delivers full force, which is why I enjoy his work so much. He doesn't use cheap jump scares and throw things at the viewer with loud sounds to establish "horror" (which I would argue isn't even horror at all), instead he creeps you out to a breaking point where you're mind is messed up for the rest of the day thinking about what you just watched, and I love it.

Great premise: what if a cat had hands??? What would be the reason for such a creature to live!!? Definitely worth the view.

Why is this not a full feature length film? This is the perfect example to illustrate my adoration for short films. There are no boundaries. One's imagination can be conveyed in the most creative ways, and this film proves it by utilising a combination of live action and stop motion. That's without mentioning how bizarrely creepy that cat was. A very short retelling of a story about a cat wanting to be human. Doesn't sound frightening at all. Heck, it sounds more cute than anything. But those expectations are quickly demolished when this cat quickly starts consuming bodies and mimicking specific bodily parts. What starts off with a cat with hands soon becomes a cat with hands and a human face. Gradually, the expressive imagination of director Morgan is fully realised. Turning an innocent domestic pet into a demonic creature that manifests the physical qualities of humanity. The inclusion of stop motion animation only further enhances the ominous story that is being told. The live action aspect is uninspired and reminiscent of a low-quality pantomime, so let's pretend those scenes do not exist. The sheer creativity and imagination in the stop motion is what makes this short film memorable and surprisingly eerie. It's unfortunate that the whole short isn't in the same aesthetic style, and if only it was that little bit longer to make more of an impact. Suffice to say it left me wanting more, but damn that was a harrowing four minutes. I'll never look at cats the same way...