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Strays
A young married couple and their daughter are terrorized by a pride of ferocious feral felines.
Release : | 1991 |
Rating : | 4.6 |
Studio : | MCA Television Entertainment, Niki Marvin Productions, |
Crew : | Art Department Coordinator, Art Direction, |
Cast : | Kathleen Quinlan Timothy Busfield Claudia Christian William Boyett Eve Brenner |
Genre : | Horror |
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Highly Overrated But Still Good
Best movie of this year hands down!
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
I love cats. I love horror. Well then I should just eat up a horror film centered primarily around killer cats, right? Well, I was hoping that'd be the case but sadly it wasn't meant to be. STRAYS is neither good, nor campy, nor entertainingly bad. It's sometimes slightly amusing in a "Well that's ridiculous / stupid..." kind of way but mostly it's just a bland, talky TV movie about a bickering yuppie couple, their lame marital / financial problems and their "precious" and "adorable" 4-year-old daughter, who is neither precious nor adorable and will have you hoping and praying she's bitten and clawed to death by the end of the film. I have a 4-year-old niece and she's beautiful, awesome and smart, unlike the stupid little troll featured in this movie, who gives all 4-year-olds a bad name. During one of the few "scary" moments, the surprised mother walks into the girl's nursery and sees her crib (why is a 4-year-old still sleeping in a damn crib?!) filled with about twenty cats. Initially I burst out laughing and said "Yes!" but my joy was stripped away little by little as each cat was removed and there was no sign of a bloodied, shredded child's corpse underneath. Does that make me a bad person?Things open with an amusing low-level cat's POV shot (done in just two takes) that begins outside, trails through the woods, moves all the way around a house, up a flight of stairs and through a doggy door. It then heads through a kitchen up to an empty food bowl, under a chair and under a table, then leaps up on an ottoman and finally onto a fireplace mantle. It's actually a pretty cool shot but alas it's also the best part of the entire movie. We then meet an old cat lady (Eve Brenner) who lives in a large country home with her dozens of "babies." Something eventually rushes up to her as she's exiting the cellar and kills her. The house is put up for sale and purchased by divorce lawyer Paul Jarrett (Timothy Busfield) and his unsuccessful writer wife Lindsay (Kathleen Quinlan), who want out of the big city so they can raise their little brat Tessa (Heather and Jessica Lilly) in the safety and tranquility of the country. That little fantasy doesn't last long.Due to neglect and being forced to resort to their natural instincts in order to survive, the cat lady's once-docile fur-balls have transformed into an army of feral felines who aren't above attacking and killing people who invade their territory. In a silly twist, the cats are all seemingly led by a gray "Alpha Cat" that hunkers over, does that low growl a lot and looks just like the cat who played Church in PET SEMATARY. In between the few attack scenes, we have to listen to the dad whine about wrecking his car after a cat bounces off the windshield, whine about his allergies flaring up, whine about his wife wanting to keep a nice mama cat and a kitten she finds in the attic and whine about their supposed financial problems. Said financial problems seem to end a scene after they're discussed when the husband tries to smooth things over with his wife by buying her a piece of expensive jewelry. A vet (William Boyett) shows up long enough to stupidly claim that feral tabbies are more dangerous than wildcats and, to buffer out the slim story line, the film's major drama doesn't even involve the cats at all, but Lindsay's divorcée sister Claire (Claudia Christian), who seems to be making sexual advances on her brother-in-law because, well, she's pretty much a backstabbing slut.All of the major characters in this one are thoroughly unlikable (due more to the script than the actors themselves) and any time a movie like this casts a small child, I automatically cringe because I know two things are gonna happen: 1. They'll use the kid to try to be cutesy and that will make me want to puke, and 2. The child will undoubtedly do moronic things to put the adults in danger. And boy does this kid ever do the dumbest kid thing imaginable at the finale: going right back into the cat-infested house that she was almost killed in minutes earlier for no apparent reason. Ugh. The cats themselves are amusing when they're on screen but the director has no clue how to really make them menacing so they're always just cute... even when they are killing and "attacking" people. That's not a good sign.
This was a terrible movie! Apparently it never occurs to the morons in the movie to just leave the house. Although there wouldn't be a movie if they did just that. The scary cats made my cats look mentally challenged! But I did notice a few boo-boos. The cat at the top of the stairs under the box couldn't figure out how to get the box off of him but later he figured out how to jump through a pane of glass. All in all the movie sucked and I am sure didn't help any of the actors careers. I did notice that one of the twins that played the daughter went on to make "Cybersex Kittens". How ironic.
A divorce attorney(Timothy Busfield)and his wife(Kathleen Quinlan)buy a desolate country home and are terrorized by a pack of wild, angry and hungry cats. Film does have its moments of panic and at times is actually scary. Otherwise pretty bland horror flick. I did enjoy the rainy, thunder filled scenes. The film's highlight for me was sister-in-law Claudia Christian(a real feline threat). Written and co-produced by Shaun Cassidy.
OK, let me say first of all that I few things went right with this movie. Its somewhat well acted, and the plot and scenes are generic, but well done. But the thing which ruins the entire basis of the movie is - THEY'RE CATS! Cats can't, therefore don't, kill people. Cujo, he's 250 pound dog, he could rip your leg off and beat you over the head with it. But these are cats, less than 10 lbs. Snap 'em like a Slim Jim I say! God I hate saying this but, "There's more than one way to skin a cat."