Thursday, February 27, 2014

Cathys Curse (1977)

After a heart warming opening in which her mother runs off with her brother George, Laura and her father burn to death in a car crash.  Then the film jumps years ahead to Cathy, her mother, and her father (the grown up George) moving into the old family estate. 

Almost immediately there are shenanigans after Cathy finds an old doll in the attic and starts acting strange.  As far as dolls go, it's not very creepy looking, but her mother keeps calling it a dirty rag which is odd. But then again her mother begins the stay at the new house by angrily saying to her husband, "You know and I know I've had a nervous breakdown."  Sadly this doesn't account for her annoying shrill voice, but I suppose it doesn't help either.

Cathy seems to have developed strange powers since she can make things break by looking at them.  Also when advancing menacingly  at people with her old doll held out in front of her at arms length, people seem to die. Plus she can disappear and appear at will, which she does in one scene when her mother yells at her. No one shall ask why her mother is more concerned with Cathy answering her questions than the fact that Cathy is teleporting all over the hallway.

In some scenes, there seems to be obvious foreshadowing which ends up going nowhere: the mother says they need to oil the attic door so no one gets locked in; a medium has a vision of Laura's death and has various bad experiences with Cathy; and once the pictures eyes glow green, an old lady appears in the attic and harasses the medium. Who the hell is she and where did she come from?  Sadly we'll never know.

I've wanted to see this since I saw the poster which is pretty cool.  The copy of the film on the Chilling Classics set is really rough, and the first part of the movie is downright bad so I'm glad I stuck it out.

Be prepared for multiple murders, a crazy mother, a clueless father, and Cathy dragging a stupid doll around while looking as evil as she can with a cute face and long blond hair.  This is an okay evil kid movie, although it's not much different from any other evil kid movies since no one thinks, hmmmm   perhaps something is wrong with this kid since she's always at the scenes of these deaths, she's acting like a creepy jerk, and doing horrible things to people while teleporting and breaking things with her mind.


Say what, now?
Yeah, I'm cutely evil
She's so washed out she's like an android or Mr. Data
Dig the crazy 70s wallpaper
It's never a good sign when a pictures eyes glow green
Mick Fleetwood is not amused.
Nervous Breakdown + Faucet of Blood....  inexplicably equals Leeches?



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