Uninvited (1987 film)

Uninvited is a 1987[2][3] American science-fiction horror film written, produced and directed by Greydon Clark and starring George Kennedy, Alex Cord, Clu Gulager, Toni Hudson and Eric Larson.[4] The film primarily takes place aboard a luxury yacht owned by a criminal multimillionaire and bound for the Cayman Islands, whose passengers and crew are terrorized by a mutant cat.

"Killer Cat" redirects here. For films featuring killer cats, see List of natural horror films § Felines.

Uninvited
Promotional release poster
Directed byGreydon Clark
Written byGreydon Clark
Produced byGreydon Clark
Starring
CinematographyNicholas von Sternberg
Edited by
  • Travis Clark
  • Tom Gunn
Music byDan Slider
Production
company
Heritage Entertainment
Distributed byNew Star Video
Release date
  • 1987 (1987)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$200,000[1]

Plot

At a genetic research facility, a genetically altered mutant cat is placed inside a house cat. The house cat escapes captivity, and kills several people in the building before escaping through an air duct. The next day, it jumps on a truck driven by two men, and kills them both by attacking them, causing them to crash the car. Meanwhile, multimillionaire "Wall Street" Walter Graham, and his associate Mike Harvey are preparing to take a luxury yacht to the Cayman Islands to evade criminal prosecution. Accompanying them are Rachel, the boat's captain who is working her way to buy the boat back from Walter; Albert, Walter's friend; and Suzanne and Bobbi, two spring breakers invited to come along.

Before the trip starts, Suzanne and Bobbi meet three boys, Martin, Corey, and Lance at the marina, and invite them to come along. Walter reluctantly agrees, but only under the condition that they work as the boat's crew as the other crew had previously quit. The cat finds its way to Suzanne, who also brings it along, only after Walter playfully and rather ironically protests that the cat is not invited. After the ship sets sail, the passengers have a party, although a drunken Albert is killed alone on the deck by the cat, and falls into the water. The others find some of Albert's blood the next day and dismiss his death as accidental. Martin, ever the inquisitive and enterprising biologist, nevertheless inspects the blood sample using a sextant in lieu of a microscope and observes that Albert's blood cell count was abnormally high.

Walter later attempts to rape Bobbi and Lance tries to stop him, but Mike intervenes and shoots Lance in the shoulder before the cat—incensed by the frenzy of violence—bites into his Achilles tendon. Mike is critically wounded by the bite, and Martin deduces that the cat's bites are venomous. Rachel and Suzanne attempt to call for help, although Walter destroys any means of communication, intent on reaching the Cayman Islands. Mike soon begins having horrible spasms, and eventually dies; the survivors throw his body overboard. The next day, while Lance and Bobbi are engaged in precoital foreplay, the cat bites off a couple of Lance's fingers. Resigned to his fate, Lance commits suicide by jumping off the ship. Bobbi pleads for him not to, and they both fall over and drown. Corey places several pieces of food in the engine room to lure out the cat, but when he tries to shoot it, he causes a steam blast that kills him.

The cat gets into the yacht's food and infects it, resulting in Rachel and Martin locking the food up. Suzanne believes they are hiding it for themselves and eats a few bites of bread, only for the poison to cause a few of her neck veins to pop, killing her. A storm arrives, and the yacht begins sinking, resulting in Walter, Rachel, and Martin evacuating on one of the lifeboats. Walter throws two briefcases of money into the lifeboat, and goes to retrieve the third, but is killed by the cat. Rachel and Martin escape in the lifeboat, but the cat follows and attacks them. They dump money from one of the briefcases into a duffel bag before knocking the cat overboard, watching it grab onto the briefcase, and slowly float away. The two reach the Cayman Islands sometime later, living off the two remaining briefcases of money.

Meanwhile, the cat washes up on a beach somewhere, and a little boy picks it up, unaware of the danger.

Cast

Critical reception

Contemporary

A reviewer writing for The Missoulian gave the film a score of zero stars, calling it an "unbelievably awful horror entry. Even the special effects are third-rate — the mutant creature looks like a carpet remnant with fangs."[5] In a review of Greydon Clark's 1989 film Skinheads, Joe Kane of the New York Daily News wrote that Skinheads "fails to equal the zesty awfulness of [Clark's] last outing, the memorable atomic-mutant-cat clinker Uninvited."[6]

Retrospective

In his 2003 book The Gorehound's Guide to Splatter Films of the 1980s, Scott Aaron Stine called the film "ludicrously silly", and wrote that it "suffers from abysmal continuity [...], an awful hand puppet-style critter, shoddy gore and abused bladder effects, model in a bathtub miniatures, and the worst overdubbing of cat noises to grace a bad horror film."[7] Author Steven Puchalski called the film an "idiotic romp" and referred to it as "mindless crapola for low IQ-ed animal lovers".[8]

In 2009, Kurt Dahlke of DVD Talk wrote that Uninvited is "so monumentally off its nut that it's quite enjoyable", but lamented the "sheer ridiculousness" of the cat as having contributed to a perceived lack of tension in the film's narrative.[9] In 2013, Todd Martin of HorrorNews.net gave the film a positive review, praising the originality of its premise and writing: "I love Uninvited and think that it is just a fun little movie. I know that a lot of people think that it is terrible and if you look up other reviews for it online they are less than positive, but I have to disagree."[4] In 2018, Jay Bauman of Red Letter Media criticized the overdubbing used in Uninvited, but ultimately called the film "legitimately entertaining and fun and weird".[10]

In 2019, Brian Orndorf of Blu-ray.com referred to the first half of Uninvited as being superior to its second half.[11] He noted the film's use of "B-movie cliches" and "characters addicted to bad decisions", and wrote that the "limited pleasures of Uninvited are primarily contained to monster matters, and while the cat effect isn't great, the creature's rampage is the best thing about [the film]".[11]

Home media

Uninvited was released on VHS by New Star Video.[2] In Europe, it was released on VHS under the title Killer Cat.[12] The film also received a LaserDisc release by Image Entertainment.[13]

In 2009, Uninvited was released on DVD by Liberation Entertainment as a double feature with the 1984 film Mutant.[9]

On January 29, 2019, Uninvited was remastered in 4K and released on DVD and Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome.[3][14] The release includes a previously unreleased international cut of the film which features alternate footage, including a different ending.[3][14]

It was also spoofed by RiffTrax on June 8, 2017.[15][16][17]

See also

References
  1. "Uninvited Blu Ray Review". Cinapse. March 18, 2019.
  2. Uninvited (VHS, back cover). Greydon Clark. New Star Video. 1988. Archived from the original on January 30, 2020. Retrieved January 29, 2020.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  3. "Uninvited – Vinegar Syndrome". Vinegar Syndrome. Archived from the original on August 26, 2021. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
  4. Martin, Todd (December 31, 2013). "Film Review: Uninvited (1988)". HorrorNews.net. Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  5. "Sci-Fi/Horror". The Missoulian. Missoula, Montana. November 19, 1988. p. 47. Retrieved August 26, 2021.
  6. Kane, Joe (January 21, 1990). "Sci-Fi/Horror". New York Daily News. New York, New York. p. 145. Retrieved August 26, 2021.
  7. Stine, Scott Aaron (2003). The Gorehound's Guide to Splatter Films of the 1980s. McFarland & Company. p. 303. ISBN 978-0786415328.
  8. Puchalski, Steven (2002). Slimetime: A Guide to Sleazy, Mindless Movies. Critical Vision. p. 304. ISBN 978-1900486217.
  9. Dahlke, Kurt (November 5, 2009). "Double Feature: Uninvited / Mutant". DVD Talk. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
  10. Bauman, Jay (Editor) (December 20, 2018). Best of the Worst: Christmas or Cats. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Red Letter Media. Retrieved January 28, 2020.
  11. Orndorf, Brian (February 5, 2019). "Uninvited Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
  12. Maidy, Alex (November 13, 2014). "VHS Retro Art Round-up: Black Roses, The Punisher, Killer Cat, and More". JoBlo.com. Retrieved January 30, 2020.
  13. "Uninvited". LaserDisc Database. Retrieved January 30, 2020.
  14. Squires, John (November 15, 2018). "Vinegar Syndrome's Blu-ray for Killer Cat Movie 'Uninvited' Will Include More Gore Footage and Never Seen Ending!". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
  15. RiffTrax
  16. Tubi
  17. Official RiffTrax trailer on Multicom Entertainment's YouTube channel
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