There have been many movies involving cat attacks in which a subject finds themselves on the wrong side of flying fur and threatening claws. And there are have many movies about cats taking revenge on abusive or evil people. But The Uncanny stands alone as one of the most extensive examples of cat-centric revenge ever to exist on celluloid.

The British – Canadian co-production was written by Michel Parry (who had previously published an anthology book entitled Beware of the Cat, a collection of horror stories involving cats) and directed by Denis Héroux (his last directing credit).

John “Jack” Holmes was the animal trainer on the film. Holmes, a noted animal trainer for movies and television from Dorset, England, was on hand in both England and Canada to handle the cats on the sets.

We previously discussed Holmes’ penchant for using nylon cords to keep his cat actors in place in our Behind the Scenes write up about Shadow of the Cat, Will the Real Tabitha Please Stand Up? This practice was also utilized on The Uncanny, with one cord being clearly visible in a scene in which a black cat is made to stay in place while Peter Cushing walks down a street. The black cat actor is even pulling against the tether, trying to get away.

In another outdoor scene the shadow of the trainer is clearly visible on the left side of the screen as he releases two tabby cats to join other cats gathered around a lamppost (treats were obviously placed at the base to attract the cats to the spot).

The cat attacks which occur in the film are pretty standard for these kind of scenes. Actress Susan Penhaligon did a notable job of screaming and throwing her hands out in fast cuts interspersed with the cats being thrown both at her and on her to sell the concept. As usual the cat actors look as if they couldn’t be less interested in attacking anyone, the drawback of all cat attack scenes done with real cats and no CGI. The cats jumping down from the stair banister sometimes look like they are being nudged from behind, although we assume the actual jump was not a high one.

Actor Simon Williams also does a notable job of grabbing a poor Bengal cat actor and holding the animal to his neck while screaming to simulate having his throat torn out. One only wonders what the poor cat was thinking while this was happening!

The cat attack on Peter Cushing (or rather his double in many shots) at the end of the film was also passable if not completely convincing. Clearly a stunt double performed the fall down the stairs at the end. Unfortunately the cat actors likely didn’t get stunt doubles to perform having Cushing’s stunt double roll over them while falling down the steps.

Sometimes a simple trick could be used to get a cat actor to perform an otherwise unnatural behavior. In the case of cat actor Ashley chewing through the rope to drop a lamp on Donald Pleasance, you can clearly see meat has placed on the rope as an incentive.

It has been reported in numerous places online that Director of Photography Harry Waxman threatened to quit when he learned that cats were being abused on the set, but we cannot find the original source of this information. With so many cats being used in one film and much of the action requiring unnatural behaviors on the part of the cat actors, one would assume that some amount of coercion was used to get the cats to perform. How much of it was above and beyond acceptable practices we may never know. But even reporter Terence Moore admitted that cat actor Ashley was not the happiest of performers when he wrote about a set visit at the end of filming in Canada for The Montreal Star published December 4, 1976:

No stand-in for Ashley

Cat has hard day on the set

by Terence Moore

     Ashley the cat spent a most unpleasant afternoon on a Montreal film set yesterday.
     People kept swinging an extraordinarily large, mean halberd — one of those 17th century battle-axes — at him. They always missed. But just.
     Ashley is one of the stars of The Uncanny, a British-Canadian co-production filmed partly here, partly in London. His principal function in the story is to kill Samantha Eggar and Donald Pleasance.
     The film is a series of three loosely-linked stories in which cats triumph over evil people, killing them in ridiculous ways — a black comedy.
     In Ashley’s episode, he avenges the murder of his mistress by killing her husband — Donald Pleasance — and Pleasance’s mistress, played by Miss Eggar.
     The killing is done on a movie set where Miss Eggar, as an actress, is being mock-killed in a spike-lined “iron maiden” torture chamber. Ashley jumps on Pleasance’s face at the crucial moment and Miss Eggar dies, as we know by the blood that runs out at the bottom of the iron maiden.
     Mr. Pleasance then pursues Ashley about the set swinging at him with the nearest prop — a halberd.
     The human stars were not present yesterday at the Panavision Canada studio at Northcliffe Avenue and de Maisonneuve Boulevard. Their parts had been shot earlier.
     The work yesterday afternoon was to get cutaway shots of halberd blows landing near Ashley.
     Ashley’s trainer, John Holmes, handled the two-year-old red and white neutered male cat, keeping just out of camera range and advising co-producer Rene Dupont, who was directing the afternoon’s shooting, just what can be done with a cat and what cannot.
     Special effects man Michael Albrechtson, also standing just outside camera range, handled the halberd and swung it at Ashley as he scurried across the set.
     Mr. Holmes, 63, Scottish-born but now living in Dorset, is an animal trainer and writer on animal training with a long background in handling dogs and cats for films.
     “You can’t really train a cat the way you can a dog,” Mr. Holmes said.
     “But you can create the circumstances in which they’ll go the way you want. If they won’t do it, you find another way.”
     In one earlier stage of the shooting of The Uncanny, he said, the director wanted a shot of Ashley emerging from a dark alley into a bright street where lights were shining on him, a generator was running, people were waving and shouting and traffic was passing.
     Ashley, preferring the security of the dark alley, simply would not do it and the shot had to be done in the studio.

     Dogs also take to movie sets better. Many of them love all the attention and strut about, very pleased with themselves, while cats are more suspicious of the whole proceeding.
     But dogs cannot take the heat of the lights as well, Mr. Holmes added.
     After a few minutes under studio lights a dog starts to get uncomfortable and distressed while a cat just settles down and enjoys the warmth.
     Also in the studio yesterday, nestled in his box, was Wellington, a six-month-old black cat who figures in a separate episode.
     Mr. Holmes brought both of them with him from England and will leave them both here when he goes home tomorrow.
     “British animal health restrictions are so severe that we can take animals anywhere in the world from Britain,” he said.
     “But they would have to spend two months in quarantine if I took them back in. I wouldn’t want to leave an animal in solitary confinement for that long, so we shall find homes for them here.”
     Shooting resumed.
     This time, Ashley was to perch atop the iron maiden while Mr. Albrechtson took another stab at him with the halberd, chipping a bit of wood off the edge, whereupon Ashley was to leap off the back and out of the picture.
     Ashley was not enjoying it one bit, despite the reassuring presence of Mr. Holmes, and it took six halberd blows before Mr. Dupont was satisfied.

     Mr. Holmes had to take Ashley off for a rest in his box after tries (sic) and bring him back refreshed and reassured for the last tries.
     “With a dog you couldn’t repeat business like that,” Mr. Holmes said.
     “If you scare a dog once with a near miss like that, I might not be able to get him back in the studio. But I could bring Ashley back here tomorrow and he would go through it all again.
     “Some cats are wary, but they don’t seem to be afraid. They always seem to think they can get away with it.”
     Cats, Mr. Holmes observed, exercise a special fascination for people.
     The Egyptians worshipped them, cat fanciers adore them, western society has associated them with witches and magic and reviled them as embodiments of evil.
     The Uncanny, in which the cats always win, should appeal to both schools of thought, he said.

The impressive cast of The Uncanny really helps to pull off a lot of the film. The order of the stories seems a bit odd, with the strongest story coming first and what can only be described as a comedy at the end, but it would be hard to come up with any better combination than what the filmmakers ultimately decided (starting with a comedy would set the wrong tone and the second story isn’t strong enough to begin or end the picture).

The connecting segments with Peter Cushing and Ray Milland, which were reportedly shot in England to accomodate Cushing’s dislike for travel, are entertaining in their own right. Reports online state that Milland was happy to accomodate Cushing by traveling to England since he could visit with friends while there.

Interestingly enough, Milland shot the scenes with the cat in Canada without Cushing (notice that Cushing is never seen in the same shot with the white Persian), so the scenes in the publisher’s home were filmed on two different continents! Milland was likely not as thrilled to travel to Canada to shoot further scenes with just a novice cat actor as a co-star. This may explain his somewhat spiteful anti-cat attitude in a syndicated Canadian Press article running in various newspapers around November 1976 from the set during his scenes with Sugar; the white Persian making her film debut:

Milland purr-turbed with newest co-star

     For a lady making her movie debut, Sugar was unperturbed about keeping veteran Hollywood actor Ray Milland cooling his heels.
     A white Montreal-born Persian cat of impeccable breeding, Sugar met up with the Oscar winner Wednesday during shooting of The Uncanny, an Anglo-Canadian co-production being filmed in a Westmount mansion.
     “I hate cats,” said Mr. Milland sipping orange juice after the morning shoot.
     “I’ve made two movies with cats and I still have the scars to prove it.
     “Of course, it’s better than being buried alive by toads as I was in one movie shot in Florida.”
     Cast throughout most of his lengthy film career as the handsome leading man with the cheerful disposition, he won an Oscar for his realistic portrayal of a mild-mannered alcoholic in the 1945 movie, The Lost Weekend.
     Now in his late 60’s, he says he enjoys making horror films like The Uncanny.
     “It’s an interesting proposition provided they’re good ones and provided you don’t work with cats.”
     The Uncanny is the first movie he has made in Canada and his third with feline co-stars.
     Directed by Quebec’s Denis Heroux, the movie stars Donald Pleasance, Samantha Eggar, Alexandra Stewart, Donald Pilon, Kate Reid and the leading man of Hammer horror movies, Peter Cushing.
     In the movie, Mr. Milland plays a publisher who is given a manuscript which cites case-histories of how cunning cats rule their environment and dispose of human enemies with feline ingenuity.
     Four cats have been flown over from England and several Montreal area cats have minor roles in The Uncanny.
     Sugar, a female cat, plays the publisher’s cat as a male.
     Sugar’s owner, Frances Diorio, is executive vice-president of the American Cat Association and a breeder. She says her cat is finding the long days on the set a bit tiring.
     “She was supposed to have walked out of the door elegantly last night, but she was just too tired.”

     Every afternoon Sugar gets a Heinz baby-food treat to keep her strength up.
     In the scene which took up a good deal of Wednesday’s shooting time, Sugar had to sit on a table then jump down when Mr. Milland entered the room.
     “Here Sugar, Sugar, pretty girl,” cooed Mrs. Diorio snapping her fingers and scratching a brocade settee to get the cat’s attention.
     Meanwhile, hidden behind a wing-chair, English animal-trainer John Holmes, tried to keep the cat in place by means of a thin nylon thread around its neck.
     It took six takes to get the scene right.
     And between takes, the man who has made more than 200 movies, rocked on his heels in the hallway.
     “That’s what this business is all about. Hurry up and wait,” he said with a wry smile.

Of course the other major cat movie starring Ray Milland was Rhubarb which co-starred Orangey (who was known for being a bit cantankerous with his co-stars). The other cat-centric film referred to in this article could have been either Premature Burial or Escape to Witch Mountain. (The film with the toads would have been Frogs from 1972).

The film did not fare well with critics and this was not helped when a printing error caused confusion at the World Film Festival in Montreal. At the film’s debut the soundtrack had been switched on two reels so during a scene with Milland and Cushing discussing the book audiences were bombarded with the sound of screeching cats and Susan Penhaligon screaming while being attacked. Hardly an auspicious start for the film.

One 1996 newspaper television guide description added the line “Good cast look to be suffering from major cat allergy.”

Despite often being dismissed as too silly for a serious horror film, the movie has garnered a cult following and even received a BluRay release. For cat fans who enjoy seeing cats getting the upper hand on humans with relatively few Kitty Carnage Warnings (considering the genre), this is definitely one to save for a fun Saturday popcorn night.