{"id":2244,"date":"2024-08-12T04:26:29","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T04:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2244"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:31:36","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:31:36","slug":"cathys-curse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/12\/cathys-curse\/","title":{"rendered":"Cathy\u2019s Curse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Cathy\u2019s Curse <\/strong>(1977)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 21st<\/sup> Century Distribution\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, some language, brief nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Eddy Matalon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Eddy Matalon, Myra Clement and Alain Sens-Cazenave\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Didier Vasseur\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jean-Jacques Tarbes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Alan Scarfe, Beverley Murray, Randi Allen, Dorothy Davis, Mary Morter, Roy Witham, Bryce Allen, Sony Forbes, Bob Girolami, Renee Girard, Peter MacNeill, Linda Koot, Hubert Noel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I first heard of Cathy\u2019s Curse<\/strong> on an episode of Sneak Previews in \u201879, a weekly movie review program on PBS with film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. One of them selected it as their \u201cDog of the Week\u201d. It was one of the many \u201cEvil Child\u201d horror flicks that followed in the wake of The Omen. I knew right away I wanted to see it. Of course, that wasn\u2019t going to happen due to the insurmountable parental R-rated movie block in place at Casa de future Movie Guy 24\/7 at the time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When I finally got my hands on a copy about 16 years later, I wasn\u2019t surprised to discover that the Original Movie Guys were right about Cathy\u2019s Curse<\/strong>. It\u2019s garbage. I also wasn\u2019t surprised to learn that it\u2019s a Canadian tax shelter movie or, as it\u2019s commonly known in film buff circles, Canuxploitation. I watched it and didn\u2019t give it much thought afterwards, relegating it to my VHS archives to gather dust until I felt like giving it another shot. Flash forward to 2020 when I heard talk of a longer cut of the 82-minute schlockfest familiar to American audiences. Sure enough, the 90-minute \u201cDirector\u2019s Cut\u201d of Cathy\u2019s Curse<\/strong> is out on Blu-Ray. While it makes a little more sense than the US cut, it\u2019s still as wonky as ever.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The story opens in 1947 with an angry dad (MacNeill, 1996\u2019s Crash) chasing after his wife who took off with their young son and left behind their daughter (Koot) for unspecified reasons. They get into an accident and die. 30 years later, the son George (Scarfe, Lethal Weapon 3) moves back into the old family with his wife Vivian (Murray) and 8YO daughter Cathy (Allen). Vivian is recovering from a nervous breakdown brought on by a miscarriage. George thinks a fresh start in the country is just what she needs. Oh, how wrong he is!<\/p>\n

\u00a0While exploring the attic, Cathy comes across the rag doll her aunt was holding the night she burned to death. How it made it back to the house without the slightest singe mark is a mystery director Eddy Matalon (Blackout) chooses not to address. It\u2019s also never explained why the doll\u2019s eyes are sewn shut. All we know is that once Cathy gets her mitts on the doll, she changes. She\u2019s clearly possessed by the spirit of her dead aunt. In the context of Cathy\u2019s Curse<\/strong>, possession doesn\u2019t only mean she becomes evil. She also gains telekinetic powers and the ability to disappear at will. Her end game is driving her mother insane. Why? Perhaps because of some maternal resentment on Laura\u2019s part? It\u2019s never explained.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In any event, bratty Cathy does all she can to push Vivian over the edge. When she\u2019s not doing that, she engages in other malevolent mischief like sending the housekeeper (Davis, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane) flying out a window, killing the family dog and violently cursing out the friendly neighborhood medium (Morter, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane) who only stopped by to impart a crucial piece of information to the mother. She also messes with the mind of alcoholic groundskeeper Paul (Witham) who\u2019s there to egg her on when she verbally attacks the well-meaning but nosy neighbor with such non-niceties as \u201cold bitch\u201d and \u201cfat dried-up whore\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Speaking of Paul, one of the most perplexing things about Cathy\u2019s Curse<\/strong> is George allowing him to look after Cathy while he\u2019s at work on a construction site (he works 18-hour days) and the mom is in the hospital. IS HE MENTAL?! He barely knows the old coot. For all he knows, the guy could be a pedophile. At one point, we see Cathy sitting on his lap plying him with booze BUT anything that might have occurred is halted when the neighbor drops by. Thank God the movie doesn\u2019t go there.<\/p>\n

\u00a0No ifs, ands or buts about it, Cathy\u2019s Curse<\/strong> is a bad movie. It\u2019s cheaply made, poorly written and badly acted. The special effects are cheesy. The ending is something of a letdown. HOWEVER, I\u2019ll take it over any of today\u2019s terrible PG-13 frightless fright flicks. As a horror fan of many years, I find the likes of The Turning and Fantasy Island an affront to the genre. Despite the money put into them, they always leave me with an empty feeling. I didn\u2019t feel that way after I watched Cathy\u2019s Curse<\/strong>. I know it\u2019s a crummy picture but at least you can see some effort went into the making of it. They didn\u2019t half-ass it or make it kid-friendly for want of a PG-13 rating. Cathy\u2019s Curse<\/strong> is a soft R at best but it\u2019s still an R.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As awful as the acting is in Cathy\u2019s Curse<\/strong>, I must give the actors credit for their dedication to the material. Somehow they manage to keep a straight face amidst all the silliness and illogic. Scarfe takes an almost Shakespearean approach to the role of a clueless dad who believes his daughter is a little angel when she\u2019s more like the spawn of Satan. Can he really not see her for the manipulative little brat she is? Murray is the most unconvincing unhinged lady I\u2019ve ever encountered in reel life. She delivers her dialogue in a stilted manner even when she\u2019s at the height of her histrionics. Allen, on the other hand, makes a pretty good killer kid. She has this evil stare that\u2019s absolutely creepy. An early scene where she directs some local children into reenacting the night of the accident is just plain nutty as it coincides with the medium reliving it in the living room while holding an old photo of the victims. Witham hams it up in a few crazy scenes including one involving rats, snakes and spiders.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It didn\u2019t dawn on me until now that Matalon is going for giallo with Cathy\u2019s Curse<\/strong>. The tone of the movie, the surreal atmosphere, the piano-and-choir score (by Didier Vasseur), the moody cinematography (by Jean-Jacques Tarbes) and the bizarre narrative makes Cathy\u2019s Curse<\/strong> feel like Euro-horror except it\u2019s not. It\u2019s a goofy, low budget horror movie from Canada, one that didn\u2019t make it to the lower 48 for nearly three years. It is its own kind of trash art, an unintentionally funny bad movie with class, a dopey B-movie with artistic integrity. You can\u2019t ask for more than that, can you?\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cathy\u2019s Curse (1977)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 21st Century Distribution\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, some language, brief nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Eddy Matalon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Eddy Matalon, Myra Clement and Alain Sens-Cazenave\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Didier Vasseur\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jean-Jacques Tarbes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Alan Scarfe, Beverley Murray, Randi Allen, Dorothy Davis, Mary Morter, Roy Witham, Bryce Allen, Sony Forbes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Cathys-Curse-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2244"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3188,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244\/revisions\/3188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}