2024
“Your mother’s a bitch!” exclaims the man. “She’ll pay for what she did to you.”
And thus Cathy’s Curse opens! Picture it: 1947. A father and daughter perish in a fiery car crash while pursuing the mother who’d left them. Fast-forward three decades, and we meet George Gimble, the deceased girl’s brother, who moves into his childhood home with his troubled wife and young daughter Cathy.
The plot thickens when Cathy stumbles upon an old doll in the attic, unleashing a barrage of supernatural chaos. What follows is a smorgasbord of horror movie clichés: blood-spewing faucets, inexplicable defenestrations, spiders, snakes, and rats appearing out of nowhere in the midst of a generally tidy and well-kept home, and naturally, a child possessed.
I’m not going to write any further about it because you will enjoy Senseless Cinema’s 2017 treatment of the film way more than anything I could possibly say. I watched Cathy’s Curse on Tubi, but as noted here by our beloved Kindertrauma, Severin put out a gorgeous Blu-Ray of it a few years back.
Why on earth did I ever watch this film? Ever since I started my 31 Days challenge this month, I’ve had a hankering for some moody, atmospheric 1970s, preferably somewhat obscure horror. I was thinking along the lines of The Haunting of Julia. Or …if not obscure, at least not mainstream, totally obvious choices. Not giallo. Not slasher. Just quiet, creepy, vibes out the wazoo.
I had some ideas of my own, but looking to expand my watchlist and wishing to leave no stone unturned, I turned to social media for suggestions. The horror community, as always, was eager to help. While many recommendations were classics I’ve enjoyed multiple times – think The Wicker Man and Rosemary’s Baby – it was heartwarming to see such enthusiasm for sharing beloved films. It reminded me of how passionate horror fans can be about introducing others to the genre’s cornerstones. However, I was hoping to uncover some hidden gems, those lesser-known atmospheric 70s chillers that might have slipped under my radar over the years.
(Note: I revised this paragraph because I realized my original version sounded snarky and dismissive. Though you gotta love it when people assume you’ve somehow missed the horror equivalents of water and oxygen, ha! Still, it’s better to appreciate the spirit in which recommendations are given, even if they miss the mark.)
Alas, I cannot blame a single one of those very helpful folks for my choice of Cathy’s Curse. I kept thinking of Stacie Ponder’s mention of it on her Gaylords of Darkness podcast a few years ago (I don’t remember which episode, but it doesn’t matter, they’re all amazing and hilarious. Pick one and listen.) In looking up to see if Stacie had ever written about it, I found that not only she had –way back in 2009!– but she’s also quoted on the Severin Blue-Ray! Not the following quote, this is from her blog.
“Cathy’s Curse is here to remind you that you know absolutely nothing and you never truly will. Like a member of The Flat Earth Society or a cinematic hardened rogue vigilante cop, Cathy’s Curse feels stifled by “the law,” be it the law of man or the law of nature. Cathy’s Curse operates outside the system, beholden only to the rules of its own world, a world in which the logic of our world simply doesn’t apply. Nothing has meaning. Meaning itself has no meaning. It laughs at your struggle as you try to figure it out, as you try to impose order on its chaos–for within this film there is only chaos.”
This is a pretty awful film, but I loved it. I would not recommend it, but I hope all of you watch it! Peek back over the next few days; I am going to compile a list of all the best ideas (not the two listed above) that people shared regarding my request for moody, atmospheric 70s films, and I’ll hopefully have decided on one to watch, too.
Anyway…your mother’s a bitch! (Why is that such a weirdly catchy earworm of a phrase???)
Day Sixteen of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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