by Linda Kay

Original Title: Ich seh, Ich seh

English Translation: I See, I See

Starring: Leo

Directed by: Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz

This review contains a Kitty Carnage Warning!

Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!

Synopsis: Twin boys Lukas and Elias (Lukas and Elias Schwarz) are taken aback when their mother (Susanne Wuest) returns from an unspecified surgery with her face completely bandaged and acting differently than they remember. Things turn troubling when the boys set out to prove the woman behind the wraps is an imposter.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer) and Kitty Carnage Warning! The mother lays a set of ground rules at the start of the film specifically to allow her to rest. One such rule is that the boys are not to bring any animals into the house. Later the boys are exploring when they hear sad meows coming from a charnel house blocked by a board. Entering the dark tomb, the boys find a poor tabby cat lying among the bones with dirty and matted fur.

The boys take the sickly cat home and place him in a box with a towel. They try to feed the poor kitty, whom they name Leo, some frankfurter but the cat is uninterested.

The mother starts knocking on the door and the boys push the box under the bed to hide the cat.

There is some tension as the mother searches the room (what for we’re not sure) but despite Leo starting to climb out of the box he is not discovered.

After this Leo disappears and the boys search the house for him. Eventually they find his deceased body in the basement. Lukas speculates that their “mother” killed the cat, and no explanation is ever given, but the likely scenario was the cat crawled away to die since it was already so ill. The boys’ method to accuse the imposter is to empty out their cockroach tank (yes, the boys keep cockroaches!), fill it with formaldehyde and put Leo inside, keeping him on full display.

Leo was played by cat actor Leo. There was no cat in the American remake of the film.

Final Mewsings: Cats deserve kindness and care especially when they are ill.

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