by Mark Murton and Linda Kay

Starring: Toby, Bugsy

Directed by: Paul Donovan

This review contains a Kitty Carnage Warning!

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

Synopsis: Research scientist Jacki (Maryam D’abo) uses genetic material taken from a cat to cure dancer Tom (Richard Grieco) who is suffering from a degenerative nerve disease. The treatment is successful but there are side effects which make Tom increasingly unpredictable and dangerous.

Kitty Cameo: The opening credits are intercut with a close-up of a black cat’s eye, starting tight on the slit pupil (so it’s not initially clear what we are seeing.) The shot eventually pulls back until the full eye is revealed.

Cat Burglars (Scene Stealers): Early in the film Jacki is working in the lab at night with a stubby-tailed tabby cat in a nearby cage.

Jacki’s colleague Dr. Pace (Serge Houde) arrives to “harvest” the cat but Jacki tries to dissuade him.

Dr. Pace ignores her request, accusing her of “going teary-eyed over a study specimen.” He reaches into the cage, pulling the cat roughly by the neck. In order to stop him, Jacki removes her mask, deliberately contaminating the lab. She argues with Pace before running around the lab releasing all kinds of insects. After her tirade she returns to the cage to recover the cat.

Kitty Carnage Warning! Jacki leaves while Pace sits and watches the videotape which he found in the filing cabinet of the operation Jacki performed on Tom. The tape includes various shots of the cat, including a fake version being operated on. The scene is disturbing but the cat clearly survives the operation since it is the same kitty from the previous scene.

Meanwhile, Tom has been pursuing fellow dancer Imogen (Natalie Radford) despite the fact that she is already in a relationship with a man called Dale (Sean Orr). A suspicious Dale follows Imogen and sees her checking into a hotel with Tom. Going to her car, which is parked nearby, he finds the videotape of Tom’s procedure. Dale returns to his and Imogen’s apartment where her Siamese cat watches his arrival.

Dale watches the tape, then leaves in pursuit of Tom. Imogen arrives and the cat greets her with a cry so she picks the kitty up and pets him or her.

Tom arrives and he and Imogen make love interspersed with shots of the Siamese cat looking pensive. Eventually the cat loses interest and starts to preen.

Purr Blur: After Tom leaves, Imogen watches the notorious video tape. More of the footage is shown this time including a shot of the brown tabby cat in its cage with another ginger cat partially seen on a shelf above.

The Siamese also seems shocked by the contents of the tape . . .

. . . before reacting to the return of Tom.

As the story moves towards its conclusion, Tom drives Imogen to a lumber yard where he stalks her through the high stacks of cut wood. Eventually, he jumps in front of her, attracting the attention of a nearby stray tuxedo cat and her kitten.

As Tom torments Imogen, the cats appear agitated. Tom notices them and hisses, causing the mother cat to hiss angrily in return.

Behind the Scenes

The cat wrangler on the film was Laura Goodchild. An article published in the Vancouver Sun on August 12, 1992, explains how she and her two cats, Toby and Bugsy, became involved in the production:

    Here’s one more funny way to break into show-biz. Laura Goodchild, who owns a company called Moogies Pet Care (sic? Moggies perhaps?) and volunteers for the SPCA in West Vancouver, joined the crew of the feature film Tom. Her title: “cat wrangler.”
    She’s on-set to help direct the movements of actor Richard Grieco’s kitty co-stars.
    In fact, the producers cast some of Goodchild’s own cats in the movie. Her Asian domestic short hair named Toby won the role of lead tomcat.

    Goodchild sounds thrilled to be working with her own pet. “He’s the whole plot behind it,” she says. “It’s a really neat story. It’s a thriller about this man (Grieco) who has an inherited genetic disease. He comes across this doctor who harvests brain cells from Toby and injects it into Richard Grieco’s character, and he becomes the body of a man but the mind of a cat.”
    He adopts an aloof personality, develops a fear of water and runs through the first of his nine lives. “I think this might be sequel material,” Goodchild says.
    The producers have taken great care with the cats, providing them with their own dressing room, toys and special foods. “They’re excellent. I was really concerned about it when I first got involved, but there are laws that protect me as an animal wrangler, and I work carefully with the SPCA, who are there with me on the shoot. I feel sorry for them though — the hours are so long.”
    Later in the shoot, Goodchild teams up with a bug wrangler, for a scene in which Toby eats a cockroach. [CC: No such scene is in the final film] The producers asked how Toby might react to such a gruesome possibility, and Goodchild laughed. “My cat’s from Malaysia and the cockroaches there are six inches long — he’ll be in heaven.”

Toby indeed played the main cat who donates their brain fluid to Richard Grieco. Sadly Bugsy only ended up as a Purr Blur playing the second cat seen briefly in the same cage.

Final Mewsings: Cats would prefer that humans not borrow their DNA.

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