Spook du jour

Are you a dog person or a cat person?

There has never really been a moment in my life that I didn’t at least live with a cat. When I was born, my parents already had a half-persian named Yo-Yo. I moved in with my cousins and they had Simba and Dinkers. Then there was Sabrina, Koko, Maxx, London, Cosmo, Eevee, Yuna, Bowser, and finally Bowie and Raimi. I think it’s safe to say I like cats. Still with me?

Dog people tend to be more extroverted and have more friends. Cat people are more likely to be introverts. I’m generalizing, and also pulling this 100% out of my ass, but it sounds good! So I’m definitely lacking in the friends department because of my affinity for cats, and not because I invite people over to watch a movie where a man dresses up as a cat, uses a litterbox, and wears a giant, barbed, cat cock dildo while he murders women.

Ted is a catperson. One word.

Ted’s cat Patrick dies, and because of this, he suffers a mental break. He masquerades as a cat in a shirt that is too small, and commissions a big shiny cock to go with his ensemble. He becomes a depraved and perverted killer, on a quest to collect nine lives so that he may resurrect his dead cat. We’ve all been there. He slashes throats, beheads victims, and collects their blood. You know, a typical Thursday.

Claire has a popular cat videos channel on YouTube. After an accident involving one of her fans, her cat is killed and Claire is raped. She ends up in a self-help group for the loss of pets where she encounters Ted, beginning an uncomfortable relationship between the two.

Cat Sick Blues is daring, not relying on the mystique and power of our very own Kitty Krueger, but choosing instead to unmask him early in the game in an almost mumblecore turn of events. This is a bit disappointing to me, as the killer is verrrry unsettling. I found him exceptionally creepy and menacing until the point when his identity is revealed. It’s kinda like if you was excited to sleep wit a man because you can tell he packin’, but all he really be packin’ is some rolled up socks. From that point the movie relies on it’s storytelling (which is passable) and its exceptional use of gore FX, rather than rest on its laurels of having created a nearly iconic villain. Ultimately, this flick did it for me.

As I mentioned before, the FX are great, and there’s a wonderful quad-kill set-piece that I suspect most slasher fans will really get their rocks off to. It’s also got nudity which one rarely comes across in modern films these days. Not only is the content great, but it also looks great. The shots are well established and the scene composition is on point, especially evident in its title card and its multiple slow motion kill scenes set to pretty music. What would your kill music be? I’d personally probably settle on some synthwave. I hear Carpenter Brut is pretty popular.

Tone-wise, the Kickstarter funded Cat Sick Blues falls somewhere between Found and Headless, with the black humor found in Terrifier or The Human Centipede. It’s dark, it’s clever, and can be seen as being a tad on the misogynistic side. Despite its 101 minute runtime, this thing really moves along. It gets a bit lost in the last 15, but there’s enough good going on that I was quickly able to forgive that slight.

The DVD from Wild Eye Releasing is wonderful. I appreciated its inclusion of the original short, as well as a short film from director Dave Jackson entitled Kappa. This DVD gets the ReelRat seal of approval.

8/10

Now if you’ll excuse me, my cats are being assholes and require some attention.

Stay Slime, and be rad at all times!

-Rat