Sadly Over-hyped

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Cyrus West has a huge fortune to leave. Twenty years after his death he still holds the strings to his family, he arranges for his family, solicitor and faithful housekeeper to gather for the reading of his will. It's 1934 and Glyncliffe Manor plays host. Cyrus was considered an eccentric, ahead of his time, he presents his bequest via moving pictures, presenting his legacy from beyond the grave. His fortune is left to the beautiful Annabelle, just because she shared the same surname, West. Wanting to put a bittersweet twist on the affair Cyrus added a proviso, should the heir die or be judged insane in a twelve hour period the legacy would go to a second heir. Events that evening are made all the more complicated when Doctor Hendricks bursts in with a warning, an escaped psychopathic killer is on the loose, he believes he's a cat, killing his victims with his bare hands. Annabelle has a tough night ahead, a killer on the loose and a greedy grouping of dubious relatives.I'll start off by saying I think it's a really great movie, I prefer this to the previous version. It was produced more so as a horror/thriller then a supernatural thriller. It does have some moments of humour which work, mostly coming from Paul Jones.Annabelle is set up nicely as the victim, she is made sweet, nice, kind, such a contrast to most of the others who are shown as greedy, devious, even murderous. Paul being the exception.The acting is solid as opposed to awesome, it's the two seniors that I enjoy most, Wilfred Hyde White and Beatrix Lehmann, both are so much fun, quite underrated gems. Honor Blackman too is excellent, she's tough but rather creepy. Carol Lynley played the English Rose really well, I had no idea she was a native New Yorker. This film was not Edward Fox's finest moment, I think he's guilty of overacting somewhat, he's definitely enjoying himself, just a little too much.There are some excellent moments in this film, some of the best ones include, the disappearance of Mrs Crosbie, the theft of a slumbering Annabelle's necklace and of course the finale. That torture room was a rather nasty creation, although nobody lost any blood after being shot.Another good moment, the attack on Susan was ruined a little as it ended in a somewhat cartoon sketch.Mrs Pleasant says to Annabelle 'The Canary in a cage almost dies of fright when the cat walks around the cage. Dies a thousand deaths, although it's quite safe.' It's a great analogy for the film, with the house acting as the cage, and the killer, the cat.Such an underrated film. 9/10

I'm not overly fond of seeing remakes of movies that I hold in high esteem, such as Paul Leni's excellent silent film "The Cat and the Canary" (1927), but the 1979 British remake (actually the fifth filming of John Willard's 1922 stage play) has such an impressive cast that it was hard for me to resist. And, as it turns out, this most recent incarnation is as fun as can be; an amusing and at times pretty darn scary updating. In what is a now-classic setup, a group of relatives convenes in England, at Glencliff Manor on a stormy night in 1934, to hear the reading of Cyrus West's will, while outside the house, an escaped homicidal maniac stalks the neighborhood. Here, West's attorney, Dame Wendy Hiller, screens the 20-year-old filmed testament of the old man (Wilfrid Hyde-White, whose grumpy recitation for his latter-day "leeches" and "bastards" easily steals the show) to a group of millionaire wanna-bes that includes yummy Carol Lynley, lesbian cousins Honor Blackman and Olivia Hussey, and American songwriter Michael Callan. Radley Metzger, in his sole horror outing in a career more known for various erotic entertainments, directs this film with style to spare, and his screenplay is clever and at times even sparkling. Callan gets the lion's share of the script's comical one-liners, and his quips regarding "putting on heirs," "where there's a will, there's a way" and "kissing cousins" are actually very funny. But don't get me wrong; despite the screenplay's cleverness, this "CATC" does dish out the scares, especially in the film's final 1/2 hour, when that maniac (who reminded me a bit of a bloodied-up Keith Richards, of all people!) gets into the house and things turn pretty nasty. All in all, a surprisingly well-done remake. Now...when is somebody finally gonna release a Region 1 DVD of the 1939 Bob Hope/Paulette Goddard "CATC"? That's what I want to know!

I can't really understand why this British 1979 production is sometimes credited as a seventies' cult movie. It's not cult like at all, it's not good, not too funny, not to scary and not gory or trashy at all, just bland and very boring. The plot of "The Cat and the Canary" is derived from the usual Agatha Christie/Dorothy L. Sayers crime novels - in his testament, an old rich English guy determines that his greedy relationship only get his money when they are spending a night at his old mansion in the English countryside. Of course this turns out to be a deadly affair, and a masked killer diminishes the amount of slick thirties' high society kids until the big showdown reveals his identity.This plot is well known from many classic crime novels and films, but Radley Metzger's direction misses to add some new elements or an own style. It's rather the opposite - the usually thrilling suspense of the whodunnit plot is replaced by a deadly boring pacing, uninspired acting and a complete missing of suspense. The director also couldn't really decide if he wanted to make a black comedy, and so some included jokes completely fall flat. Even the good British cast of Edward Fox (Day of the Jackal), stunning Honor Blackman (The Avengers, Goldfinger), Wendy Hiller (The Elephant Man) and movie veteran Wilfrid White-Hyde can't help to rescue this movie from drowning in a sea of boredom...

If drawing-room-type murder mysteries with a comic touch are your cup of tea, then you can't go wrong with this one. It's not as good as, say, "Murder by Death" or the best Agatha Christie adaptations, and there are some overly talky sequences that exist mainly to showcase the actors and lead nowhere. But it holds your interest, and has some very good acting, especially by Wilfrid Hyde-White in a most unusual cameo. (**1/2)