Dino De Laurentiis Company
Starring: Ray Liotta, Linda Fiorentino
Directed by: John Dahl
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: Medical examiner Dr. David Crane (Ray Liotta) uses an experimental drug that tranfers memories from one person to another to try to find out who killed his wife, a murder he was almost convicted of himself.
Featured Feline: The creator of the experimental drug is medical student Martha Briggs (Linda Fiorentino). Dr. Crane visits her university laboratory to find out more about her tests on animals. She demonstrates by pulling a tabby cat named Zelda from a carrier.
Zelda is placed behind a door inside a maze and a lab rat which does not know the maze is placed beside the cat.
The doors are open in sequence and Zelda chases the rat through the maze. Since the rat doesn’t know where to go for safety, Zelda soon corners it. Martha pulls the rat to safety before Zelda can touch it.
Martha then injects the necessary chemical from another rat who knows the maze and mixes it with her formula, injecting it into the same rat which just unsuccessfully ran the maze. Dr. Crane watches as the experiment is repeated and the rat runs away from Zelda through the maze as if having done it before, reaching the safe area this time.
Zelda is then put back into her carrier. Later in the film the lab is blown up by a bad guy. No mention is made of what happened to Zelda and the rats but it probably wasn’t good news.
Final Mewsings: Does anything good ever happen to a cat in a laboratory?
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