As you know, I love everything in the world, with the exception of three things. Two of those things that I love the most are horror films, and cats.
When the two meet, it tends to end badly for the cat. There are some famous exceptions; Jones from Alien survives, as does Claude in Black Christmas (presumably) and of course the stray cat who Patrick Bateman almost feeds to the ATM in American Psycho. Presumably those cat actors are in a strong union.
I can't be the only one who breathes a sigh of relief when he only kills the human, rather than the cat. It's odd, but I care more when animals die in films than when humans do. Well, it's not that odd, it's perfectly explainable; I hate humans and I like animals, especially cats. So here are my top 5 cat deaths in horror films: (WARNING: Contains spoilers and dead cats.)
5. Straw Dogs
Sam Peckinpah's classic should be called Straw Dogs and Dead Cats, thanks to this scene in which Dustin Hoffman finds his cat hanged in a wardrobe. As in the case of most cinematic cat murders, this is a warning; "To prove to you that they could get into your bedroom." It seems a bit extreme though, they could just as easily have hidden his jeans or something.
4. Kill List
In what is probably an homage to Straw Dogs, the cat in the incredible Kill List meets the same grizzly end. Killing animals is famously a sign of psychopathy. Let's face it, you'd have to be a monster to murder an adorable cat. Unless it was really annoying.
3. Scream
Okay, so this isn't strictly speaking a cat death; if you're going to be all pedantic about it then yes, Rose McGowan is technically a human. But she is killed in a cat flap and it turns out I haven't done enough research, so it counts.
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
I won't use a picture for this one, because if you've seen David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo then you'll probably remember the horrifically mutilated cat, and if you haven't then I don't want to spoil it. Basically, it's one of the most horrible things ever. Let's move on.
1. Drag Me to Hell
My favourite horror film cat death comes in Sam Raimi's brilliant Drag Me to Hell, in which a girl denies a mortgage extension to an old gypsy woman who, in revenge, puts a curse on the girl which will send her to hell in three days. At one point, in a desperate bid to send an animal sacrifice in her place, the girl kills her own cat. Long story short, it doesn't work, and the cat comes out of someone's mouth at the end. You don't get that in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films...
Thanks for reading this blog, which will presumably be all over the tabloids when I'm inevitably admitted to an institution of some sort. Next time - dog deaths!
I'll leave you with the excellent Submotion Orchestra song on which the title of this blog so innovatively puns. Enjoy!
