Reviewed by: Linda Kay
There are cinephiles and there are ailurophiles but a word has yet to be created for people who love cats in movies (perhaps cinailurophile could be added to the dictionary in the near future?) In the meantime, we do have those who devote their lives to the subject of kitties on the silver screen and one such person is noted author and blogger Vanessa Morgan who brings us her latest tome covering both subjects which are near and dear to her heart. Meow! Cats in Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy Movies delivers exactly what the title promises yet so much more.
An active participant in the Belgium film festival circuits, Vanessa has written numerous horror-themed books, two of which were made into films. The short film The Strangers Outside starred her own Turkish Van cat named Avalon, and Vanessa also published a loving biography about Avalon which is a must read for every cat lover. Recently Morgan edited a sort of precursor to Meow! entitled When Animals Attack: The 70 Best Horror Movies with Killer Animals, a collection of essays about those scary screen critters we love to fear.
With Meow!, Vanessa once again compiles a collection of essays from herself and various authors covering notable cats from films in the horror, sci-fi and fantasy genres. What makes this an especially entertaining read is the background information on the various films, as well as the insightful and humorous opinions of the contributing reviewers. The covered films date from the silent era through current and impending releases and include all of the titles one would expect (such as Aliens, Hausu and Bell, Book and Candle) as well as some lesser known films the reader will enjoy discovering (i.e. Mr. Patman, The Voices and Zombie Cats from Mars).
After an entertaining introduction by Morgan, the first half of the book features movies with major cat appearances and / or notable cat themes in chronological order. The essays for these films are more extensive with fascinating details included about each entry. The second half covers smaller cat appearances in other films from the featured genres with shorter summaries of the movies and their cats.
If one could make any very slight complaint about Meow! it would be the lack of a Table of Contents at the beginning. Also Meow! only occasionally delves deeply into the history or background of the cat actors featured in the various movies but the book definitely does give many fascinating details about the films themselves, so for movie lovers who happen to love cats this is the perfect fit.
Meow! Cats in Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy Movies is available on Kindle via Amazon and Goodreads and in paperback from Amazon.
Also be sure to check out Vanessa’s other passion, her blog entitled Traveling Cats which features photos of cats from all around the world.