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Monday, March 23, 2020

The Uncanny - Peter Cushing Anthology

"The Uncanny" is an anthology from the 70s with a pretty unusual running theme.  All of the stories involve cats.  Three short horrors, all with household felines providing the scares.  Even the wraparound story centers around a conspiracy of cats, which Cushing's character hope to reveal in a a book, with help of a publisher, portrayed by Ray Milan.

Milan and Cushing are fun as ever, but there scenes do seem to have been shot in a bit of a rush.  I honestly wouldn't have been surprised to find that they were shot in a single night.

As in many of these anthologies, the experience is uneven, with the last story, starring Donald Pleasance ( a personal favorite of mine) in a rare, almost slapstick, comedic performance.

The very first story is probably the scariest with an entire army of kitties bent on revenge against a couple scheming to get money from a sick old woman.  The pace is fairly slow at times, but it's necessary to convey the passage of time.  The acting is solid enough and some of the shots of the cats make the little critters appear truly menacing.  Add a little claustrophobia and you've got a spooky, if not fast paced, little segment.

The second film is a Cinderella kind of tale about an orphaned girl who is mistreated by her cousin turned step sister and not particularly kind aunt.  Fortunately for her, the girl's mother has left her a book on witchcraft and a black cat as a familiar and guardian.  The special F/X here make use of optical and practical methods of the time to varying effect.  At some points it plays out very well and other times it isn't convincing at all.  Not a lot of gore, but a very gruesome concept or two conveyed by suggestion.

As mentioned, the final story, with Donald Pleasance, is a kind of dark comedy.  A love triangle and murder "mystery" with a cat playing "Columbo".  There are very few surprises in this one except for how goofy it's played.  The comedy is a necessity, because nobody could take the plot seriously. Some beautiful shots here and really fun moments, but no real scares.

The wrap around story is perhaps the most sinister and again has great some angles and shot compositions.  This segment is also saved by the screen presences of Cushing and Milan.

When it comes down to is, how scary this movie is comes down to whether or not you find 15 pound tabbies to be convincingly dangerous.  A significant amount of disbelief needs to be suspended here in varying amounts depending on the story.

The biggest distraction I had was constantly seeing cat behavior that made me think the poor things may have been mistreated on set.



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