Confessions of a Psycho Cat

Confessions of a Psycho Cat is a wholesome piece of family entertainment about some junkies having an orgy, waiting "for the man," who arrives with quite a story to tell: he's been shot by a hitman or something after agreeing to become a sort of "human prey" for some mad rich woman's urban safari. There are two other fellows she pegs to be game in her "Most Dangerous Game" live-action roleplaying scenario--an actor, and a burly wrestler.

There's lots of sexy action and nudity right up front--then the dealer arrives and tells his tale. Lured to a nightclub or something decorated to look like Elvis's Jungle Room, he gets offered the 100k to put his ass on the line. Doesn't faze him, as "I've hid from the cops for a month. Lady, I can hide from you." Or, he says something like that. (Hey, I wasn't taking notes, okay?)

The woman is some rich young heiress or something that regularly visits a shrink that seems borrowed from a scene from Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda (the scene where Ed/Glen/Glenda tells an old man, "My mind's in a muddle, like in a thick fog."). Her brother works in South Africa. She hires a hitman (I think) who hides out in a phone booth and wears shades. She has had a troubled childhood wherein DEATH, brutal, sickening, inexorable DEATH (am I coming through here?) sidled up to her, nice and cozy, and said, "Hi!"

"I don't like dogs. I used to have a dog. I was glad when he died," she tells her shrink, and she has two personalities, dig? Just like Sybil. (Actually, Sybil had eight.)

One: She is the prim and proper ladybug debutante type of sophisto. The OTHER? She's a wild-eyed, long-haired, hillbilly harridan with an outrageous, maniacal laugh and a psychopathic demeanor. The film echoes her insanity, getting creative with comic book angles, extreme close-ups, and using a lens that makes the background distorted in a sort of funhouse way (alternately, you could describe it as if they filmed into one of those round security mirrors they use to put up in convenience stores to stop people from shoplifting--face in the foreground, distorted background pushed far, far away).

But the film is still pure sleaze--a sort of sub-porno nudie cuties: pants are unbuttoned, titties and pasty asses are on full display, and even a bit of lesbian erotic kink is exhibited in the form of one girl kissing another girl's torso. I guess being addicted to smack makes you a sexual Olympiad (actually it doesn't).

This film gets gory: arrow through the throat, murder by garden shears, bodies hanging American Psycho style in the closet. And that's just another cool layer on top of a sleazoid sundae that is, actually, more entertaining in many ways than vastly, technically "superior" films. What the hell is the meaning of it all, and why doesn't the plot make sense? Who knows? Who cares?

One may well wonder how the drug dealer knows so much, for instance; he suddenly seems to become the omnipotent, all-seeing narrator. That is if I didn't somehow miss something.

In the end, our Psycho Cat is locked away in her kitty cage, raving in mad frustration. Her brother has to come back from South Africa to learn the shocking secret, the terrible truth. The movie ends with caterwauling and insanity, wrapped in a straightjacket. But no sign anywhere of Joan Crawford (that's a different movie).

It's an entertaining brief piece of exploitation crapola that has most of the other earmarks of this particular breed of film from this era: black and white photography, a jazzy soundtrack, rotten dialog, and wretched acting, as well as lots of gogo gals with large, doughy asses and huge soft Betty Page brassieres. I'd give it three stars, but, since it's a film no decent person should watch anyway, I'll just leave it at that.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Patrick Bateman said, "This confession has meant nothing." In the case of this movie, he's probably right.

Confessions of a Psycho Cat (1968): First kill