Uninvited (1988)

Movie Info

With a swinging dance party like this, who wouldn’t go on this yacht?

An experiment has gone awry.  An infected cat escapes a laboratory and has managed to stow away on the yacht of group of criminals led by Walter Graham (Alex Cord).  Unfortunately, Walter has invited a group of kids as cover while he and his associates Mike Harvey (George Kennedy) and Albert (Clu Gulager) and the danger is growing.  Something is lurking inside the cat, and it comes out when threatened.

Written and directed by Greydon Clark, Uninvited is a low-budget horror B-Movie.  The film was critically panned but gained a cult following over the years.

I have seen multiple clips of Uninvited over the years, but I never sat down and watched the movie.  With the film available for streaming, it seemed like the perfect time to visit the movie.  Uninvited proved to be so-bad-it-is-good…and even completely insane in that sense.

Cat in the Hat? Nope…Cat in the Cat

The story is a bunch of clichés.  You have the typical teens (jocks, druggies, hot girls, etc.), dull criminal underlings, and a monster that doesn’t stop.  It just happens to be that the monster is a cat…in a cat.  It feels like the story (which was barely a story to begin with) gives up a few minutes into the movie.  You have the cat literally just jumping at people over and over again (in one of the most ridiculous ending sequences ever).

The cast is led by Oscar winner George Kennedy who really had a habit of picking awful titles in late career (minus The Naked Gun films of course).  You would think he could give the flat cardboard character some depth, but he fails, and he can’t even die convincingly.  Clu Gulager at least seems like he’s having fun with his character and Airwolf actor Alex Cord is sleazy, but it feels he’s sleazier due to the quality of the film.  None of the younger characters make much of an impression though some have gone on to other roles despite this feature.

This cat-thing came to party!

The star of the film is the toxic, killer cat-in-cat.  The cat itself is dubbed with monotone meowing and then turns into a hand puppet that isn’t scary other than the filmmakers might have actually believed it was scary.  You have to see the cat to believe it.

Uninvited is as legendary as it was led to be.  The movie is a classic B-Movie and the definition of so-bad-it-is-good.  You can’t go into Uninvited expecting scares or screams.  You will only find laughs and shock that Uninvited was even made.  I can recommend Uninvited but probably not for the reasons the filmmakers intended…seek it out.  Meow.