The Night of a Thousand Cats (1972)

06 Feb 2025

Rating: 1.5/5

Anti-Criterion Challenge 2024 | 40/52 | Made in a country with land between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer by a director from that country (Mexico)

Watching the 60-minute US cut because I can’t imagine a 90-minute version of this movie.

Hugo is a rich due who seduces women, then flies them out to his castle in a helicopter to kill them and feed them to his 1000 cats (more like 100, am I right?). He can’t keep getting away with this. Can he??

What works in this movie is cinematography. While the plotting is tedious, the flick has some stellar sequences, including a slow-motion flashback that had me floored.

The set is pretty decent—I’m always a sucker for gothic castles.

Honestly, my biggest problem with the movie is the treatment of the cats. All the cats are in that small cage, crawling over each other. One gets thrown around, and one gets held underwater. It’s not my thing.

I might have liked this if not for the animal mistreatment.


See Review on Letterboxd