by Mark Murton
Directed by: Carter Lord
Cat Out Of The Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film.
Synopsis: In this low-key but atmospheric fantasy drama, Royce Hagan (Will Sennet) inherits a 2000-acre ranch in one of the last wild places left in central Florida and sets about making the place his home. Despite a warning from old family friend Booker T. Robertson (Julius Harris), Hagan befriends the Perdry family living in the woods nearby and soon falls in love with eldest daughter Twyla (Casey Blanton) taking him closer to learning the truth of the local legend of the “Hole in the Wall,” a stretch of woods where a portal is said to exist between the human world and that of magical creatures.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): Some time into the film a calico kitten suddenly appears in the long grass, looking around and crying out.
Twyla is picking flowers nearby when she hears the kitten’s cries and looks around, concerned. As the cries come again she drops the flowers and runs away in fear, before falling to the ground near the kitten which continues to cry at her.
Late that night, Booker is on his porch when he hears the kitten crying. He ventures out and scoops her up, musing that she must have been dumped from a car and concluding that it “sure ain’t no witch cat.”
Holding the kitten in his palm he starts to talk to her, declaring, “All I know is it’s bad luck to get rid of you so looks like I’m gonna have to raise you up.” As he walks inside he continues, “Cat come with the full moon . . . that be a sign of something.”
Meanwhile Twyla takes a room in Royce’s house where she starts to paint strange murals on the walls.
One day the kitten comes bounding out of the tall grass and makes her way to the house.
Twyla is in her room when she hears the kitten scratching outside the door.
As the cat saunters in and crosses the room, Twyla backs into a corner (next to her painting of how she sees the cat) looking fearful. The kitten isn’t seen again and it’s not until the final scene that we understand Twyla’s extreme reaction to the kitty’s presence.
Final Mewsings: We’ve often been enchanted by a kitten.
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