The first made for television collaboration between Psycho scribe and all round pulp horror titan Robert Bloch with classy b-horror veteran Curtis Harrington, The Cat Creature is a charming if inconsequential affair that neither reaches the levels of its influences nor surpasses its status as a made for television production, but is still perfectly good stuff for a dull afternoon left sparing. The outlandish plot sees an antique theft from a deceased collector result in the release of a murderous acolyte of the Egyptian cat goddess Bast, and cop Lieutenant Marco teaming up with Professor Roger Edmonds to figure out what's going on. Then there's occult shop owner Hester Black and her assistant Rena Carter getting involved in things as well. The vibe hearkens back to horror and detection stories of yesteryear, particularly the 1940's and Cat People, with a measured pace and restrained action as well as certain pleasing subtleties. Director Harrington pulls off a few effectively creepy stalking sequences and deploys the titular beast in fun if slightly repetitive fashion. Fortunately the story has a few twists and turns so things never get dull, although they fail to get all that heated either. The cast is fairly well handled and thread things through nicely, Stuart Whitman is suitably gruff and no nonsense as Lt. Marco, Meredith Baxter paints Rena in sympathetic shades of confusion, fear and yearning, while David Hedison takes a while to warm up and loose his awkwardness but is still likable as Prof. Edmonds, a classic academic good guy figuring things out with open-mindedness and learning. Best though is Oscar winner Gale Sondergaard as Hester, crooked and controlling, time soured and radiating low key negativity yet at the same time open and helpful. She steals every one of her scenes and brings an unaffected old fashioned class to things that is perhaps the films greatest asset. It's just a shame that the film doesn't really have enough in the way of atmosphere or shocks (being rather tame even by made for television horror standards), so for all that it has in the way of style and vacant likability it just isn't all that compelling. Certainly watchable, but definitely a film for fans of television horror of the era rather than more casual fans, who may quite reasonably be bored and unimpressed. As a fan of such horror then I give The Cat Creature 6/10 and partially recommend it to other such fans, but it is far from essential.
Review of The Cat Creature
