by Linda Kay

Directed by: Robert Eggers

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

Synopsis: A newly reimagined telling of the classic Dracula story based on the original silent film classic. Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) has deep concerns, coupled with troubling visions, when her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) has to travel to Transylvania to arrange a real estate deal for the mysterious Count Orlock (Bill Skarsgård), only to have her worst nightmares come true when the Count eventually comes to claim her.

Kitty Cameo: Ellen has a silver tabby cat named Greta who is first seen when Ellen and Thomas are spending a few close moments before he has to go to work.

As Ellen clambors up between them, Thomas reminds Ellen that he told her not to let the cat on the bed and complains that he gets cat hair on his clothes.

When Thomas learns he must go abroad he travels with Ellen to the estate of his friends Friedrich and Anna Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin) where Ellen will stay while he is gone. Of course she brings Greta along with her.

Cat Cattle Call: As Thomas experiences the terrors of Orlock’s powers, Ellen suffers from seizures and other terrifying maladies, causing the Hardings to send for Doctor Sievers (Ralph Ineson), who in turn calls upon his mentor Prof. Albin Eberhart von Franz (Willem Dafoe). Sievers takes Friedrich with him when he calls upon Prof. von Franz and they enter the man’s home where he has numerous cats.

When Prof. Franz arrives at the Harding’s home and sees the state Ellen is in he demands her restraints be removed and sits beside her. Greta has been lying with Ellen and sits up when Prof. von Franz sits down. “Is she yours?” he asks Ellen as he reaches into his pocket to remove some kind of tidbit and feeds it to the appreciative cat. “She has no master or mistress,” Ellen informs him and, being a cat person, he understands.

In a later scene in Prof. von Franz’s home he is holding a cat on his lap.

Thomas returns home but in very poor shape. Eventually the husband and wife make their way back home with Greta, who isn’t seen again until the very last scene of the movie when Prof. von Franz picks her up and holds her.

The cat’s name, Greta, was in honor of actress Greta Schröder who played the part of Ellen in the original film. The animal services for this film were provided by Faunafilm S.R.O. with Alexandra Strapkova as the lead cat trainer.

“The cats were incredible,” director Robert Eggers enthused. However, in an earlier interview the director gave alongside lead actress Lily-Rose Depp he admitted that things were not as smooth as he hoped, at least not at first. “In the first scene that we worked with the cat, she was a bit unruly,” Eggers admitted, “But by the time we were doing the scene where Willem [Dafoe] meets you for the first time, the cat was jumping off the bed perfectly on cue, every time.” “Yeah, she was good,” Depp agreed, going on to explain, “[Nicholas Hoult] and I had a little kind of meet-and-greet session with the cats beforehand. Possibly to see which one took to us the most.” “Yeah, because the cat was played by several cats,” Eggers elaborated.

Actor Willem Defoe explained that there was a lot of choreography with the cats and that even though he was allergic to the animals he felt the kitties gave the right tone to his character. “His social dynamic is a million cats,” Defoe explained in an interview.

Final Mewsings: Everyone should carry cat treats in their pockets, just in case.

Many thanks to sis Cyn and T.j. Dotson for letting us know about the cat in this film.

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