GamerTab That was an excellent one.

StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Coventry "Shadow of the Cat" is a modest and often overlooked Hammer horror production, but simultaneously also an underrated and genuinely creepy gem that is guaranteed to deliver a compelling plot, a moody gothic atmosphere, competent performances from a bunch of Hammer regulars and more than a handful of silly but nevertheless sinister murders committed by (or at least initiated by) a vindictive cat named Tabitha! Moments after her beloved heiress Ella Venable read Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" to her, Tabitha the Cat witnesses how poor Ella gets murdered by her husband Walter and two household staff members. The faithful housecat promptly makes it clear that she will avenge her heiress and terrifies the culprits so badly that they must call in the help of more vicious family members. While six (!) people are desperately trying to annihilate the evasive cat, the good-hearted niece Beth begins to suspect that aunt Ella's disappearance and the sudden fear for the otherwise friendly animal might have something to do with a missing testament. Sure, it requires a large dose of "suspension of disbelief" to accept how unnaturally petrified these people are of a simple cat, but George Baxt's screenplay is clever and John Gilling's direction is professional enough for the film to remain suspenseful. Gilling made some of Britain's best and most nightmarish horror films, by the way, like "Plague of the Zombies" and "The Flesh and the Fiends".

jamesraeburn2003 Wealthy Ella Venable (Catherine Lacey) makes a new will leaving everything to her husband Walter (Andre Morell). Ella is clubbed to death by her servant, Andrew (Andrew Crawford), and helped by Walter and the housekeeper, Clara (Freda Jackson), buries her body in a shallow grave in the woods. The chief witness to all this is Ella's pet cat, Tabatha, which embarks on spying on and terrorising them and they decide to trap and destroy it. After the cat jumps on Walter in the cellar weakening his heart and confining him to bed, Ella's niece, Elizabeth (Barbara Shelley), arrives at the house along with Walter's unscrupulous relatives; his brother Edgar (Richard Warner); his son Jacob (William Lucus) and his wife Louise (Vanda Godsell). Walter instructs Edgar, Jacob and Louise to find another will that exists leaving Ella's entire fortune to Elizabeth - whom they later plan to kill - and to trap and kill the cat. But, Tabatha outwits the plotters every time and one by one the cat exacts vengeance on those that killed its mistress.A Hammer horror in all but name - the company removed its name from the credits due to legal quota reasons - which supported The Curse Of The Werewolf on the double bill in 1961. It is masterfully directed by John Gilling who succeeds in wringing suspense and tension from a daft plot. There are some neat shocks - the death scenes shot from the cat's point of view using a distorted lens are particularly effective. Arthur Grant's atmospheric black and white camera-work with its use of shadow and Mikos Theodorakis' jumpy score add to the spooky old dark house setting leading up to a shocking climax.Performances are good all round with Warner, Lucus and Godsell suitably shifty and untrustworthy as the good for nothing, self serving relatives while Conrad Philips (William Tell) is standout as the newspaper man who suspects that the family are up to no good from the word go. Andre Morell is good as the villainous Walter Venable although it is far from his best Hammer performance. I personally prefer him as Dr Watson in The Hound Of The Baskervilles or, better still, Sir James Forbes in The Plague Of The Zombies while Barbara Shelley offers a strong performance as a typical Hammer heroine.If the film has any flaws it is that the giggles do occasionally set in when the actors go over the top in their hysterical reaction to the cat. The police inspector (Alan Wheatley) rather neatly sums it up: "Things really come to pass when a cat terrorises a house full of adults."

Theo Robertson This owes a lot to both Edgar Allan Poe and Hammer Studios . A man murders his wife with the help of his two servants to claim the inheritance quickly realising her cat Tabitha has witnessed the murder and is bent on revenge . It sounds slightly bonkers and it is but Poe in his short story The Black Cat brought a credibility to a macabre story of revenge . THE SHADOW OF THE CAT is much more in keeping with the spirit of Poe compared to the 1930s Universal film starring Karloff and Lugosi which took the title of Poe's story but absolutely nothing else .Alas SHADOW OF THE CAT is a rather mundane melodrama . Andre Morrell can do no wrong in my opinion and realises what sort of film he's appearing in and acts accordingly - by hamming things up every chance he gets including a laugh inducing scene where he's stuck in a cellar and shrieks like a banshee as he fights off an attack by Tabitha . As for the rest of the cast they're very mundane who have little impact in a film with a cheap feel with a rather uninteresting screenplay featuring a cat on a revenge mission . Maybe they could have got Charles Bronson to play Tabitha ?

malcolmgsw Filmmakers have long faced a dilemma as to how to make benign domestic pets and unferocious animals look malevolent.Short sharp close ups and doom laden music ,mickey mousing are 2 ways of doing it.both are tried by the director,the redoubtable John Gilling.However even he cant make this feline look ferocious.Maybe he should have hired a Twetie Pie double.However this doesn't affect the entertainment to be had as a number of venerable actors make themselves go silly trying to look as if they are truly worried about the pesky canine.It is in fact the sort of film where you scream with laugh rather than fear.It is worth viewing if for no other reason.