Review: Cathy’s Curse

Years after his father died in an horrific car crash, Alan Scarfe moves his wife (Beverly Murray) and daughter Cathy (Randi Allen) into his late father’s home. Cathy quickly becomes possessed with the evil spirit of her dead Aunt (who also died in the car crash).

 

Bargain basement junk from Canada, this 1977 snoozer directed by Frenchman Eddy Matalon (“Blackout”, with Robert Carradine and Ray Milland) film rips off both “Carrie” and “The Exorcist”. Easily one of the worst films I’ve seen in my 41 years on this planet, it might even rival the same year’s “Exorcist II: The Heretic” for sheer ineptitude. Although Beverly Murray and especially Alan Scarfe have gone on to other things in the years since, you wouldn’t know it based on the “Troll II”-level performances everyone gives here. Except “Troll II” had the benefit of being (unintentionally) funny. Poor Ms. Murray is especially bad here, swinging wildly between stilted and horribly overwrought, occasionally within the same scene. I imagine the only way she and Scarfe got work after this was because only 5 people saw it. As the title character, one-and-done actress Randi Allen spends the entire film looking like a miserable little shit. She’s not evil or creepy or sympathetic or charismatic…just a snotty little turd who needs a ‘time out’. There’s one good – or at least amusing – scene involving a freak-out in a bathtub, but the rest? Woof, though it sure does get completely whack-a-doodle at the climax. I’m pretty sure Mick Fleetwood gets vaporised at one point. Even then it’s still not entertaining, just weird.

 

Truly and honestly one of the worst movies ever made. It’s muddy-looking, has a horrible soundscape, a derivative plot, and shoddy acting and direction. This is the pits. The screenplay is by the director alongside Myra Clement (who seemingly never worked again) and A. Sens-Cazenave (who is more prolific as an assistant director).

 

Rating: F