Wilbur (Peter Cushing) is a science writer who has a terrible fear of
cats, and he has written a book about cats being the real masters of the
world, which he now tries to pitch to his publisher (Ray Milland) - who
wouldn't you know it has a cat.to convince the publisher about hsi book,
Wilbur tells him three stories about evil cats:
- The first story concerns old Mrs Malkin (Joan Greenwood) who wants
to leave her entire fortune to her cats - much to the dismay of her
nephew Michael (Simon Williams), who wanted the money for himself. But
Michael still has an ace up his sleeve, Janet (Susan Penhaligon), Mrs
Malkin's maid, who is secretly also his girlfriend, and she tries to
steal the will out of the old woman's safe soon enough - but when Mrs
Malkin catches her, Janet kills her ... and is immediately attacked by
the cats, managing to save her life only when she locks herself in a
cupboard. Eventually, she realizes the cats have calmed down and makes
another attempt to get her hands on the will - but then she sees Mrs
Malkin's dead body partially being eaten up by the cats and has a
severe shock - which is when the cats make another attack and kill
her. Days later, Michael arrives at the place with the police and
finds both his aunt and his lover dead. Immediately he tries to take
hold of the situation and get his hands on the will as well, when the
cats attack him too.
- Lucy's (Katrina Holden) parents have just died in a plane crash, and
now she and her cat are moved to her aunt (Alexandra Stewart), wheree
she is soon subjected to her cousin Angela's (Chloe Franks) jealousy,
which really gets the better of Angela when she realizes that Lucy's
cat loves only Lucy and won't play with her. So Angela sees to it that
the cat is being taken away, and that Lucy learns who was
responsible for it. Somehow though the cat returns, and Lucy knows a
thing or two about black magic, like causing Lucy to shrink in the
finale and having her chased by the cat for a while like a mouse,
before Lucy herself smashes bratty Angela.
- Actor Valentine De-Ath (Donald Pleasence) sees to it that his wife
(Catherine Bégin) is killed on the set of his latest horror movie and
his mistress Edina (Samantha Eggar) gets her job. Thing is,
Valentine's wife had a cat, and cats can be vengeful beasts - and
despite their best efforts, Valentine and Edina just can't manage to
get rid of the animal. Instead one night, the cat visits Valentine and
Edina on the set of the film one night and sees to it that Edina is
killed in an iron maiden before attacking Valentine, killing him too.
Having finished his stories, Wilbur leaves his manuscript in the
publisher's care and heads home - but is killed by a bunch of cats on the
way. The publisher meanwhile is hypnotized by his cat into burning the
manuscript and give the cat a new bowl of milk.
The idea of cats ruling the world is actually pretty amusing, and a
horror film with something as cute as cats being the monsters is at least
inspired - but unfortunately, The Uncanny makes the least of its
premise, reduces it to one story of Birds-like animal horror, a
black magic tale with traits of The Incredible Shrinking Man that
never actually gets off the ground, and one very predictable revenge story
that is somehow reminiscent of Tom and Jerry - without
really being meant to be funny. Of course, nice sets, a decent if old-fashioned
direction and above all excellent actors see to it that the film is not a
total loss - it's jsut far from being a winner either.
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