Night of a 1000 Cats or La noche de los mil gatos as it was originally known, is a no-budget exploitation effort from director René Cardona Jr. and surprisingly, it is not all that bad though on the other hand, it is also not all that good.

Suffice it to say, there are a whole lot of cats in this film, nearly all of them locked up and when one just so happens to escape or is seen at some point in the film, Hugo as played by Hugo Stiglitz, either throws it back in the cage or kills it. The man seems to have a phobia or a weird obsession with the four-legged felines and one cannot help but feel a little bad for the cats though they do get fed well enough, mostly on the bodies of the women that Hugo kills. For good measure, there is the odd man thrown in the mix so one cannot say that there is not an equal opportunity given. The movie follows Hugo as he does his killings, wooing all manner of beautiful women who somehow fall for him or for the castle and possible money that he seems to have and yet, as time marches on, they soon learn that they are not going to be long for this world.

There comes a point in the film where Hugo finds love, perhaps, and looks to reform his ways and ends up showing his collection to his latest conquest who obviously freaks out. It is one thing to see a whole lot of cats and another to see a whole lot of heads floating and preserved in canisters. The difference with this latest woman is that she manages to escape and Hugo, for all that he has done to these cats, manages to end up feeding them one last time, with himself. Despite all that goes on in this movie, there is little to no nudity even though one totally expects it as half the running time is spent watching Hugo woo these girls and even with all the killing, there is hardly any blood to be found. This makes for a bit of a disappointment as leaves the audience with nothing to do aside from pondering about the cats and all the questions that come with them. How many cats are there and how did he get all these cats in there and how have they not escaped and where do they go to the bathroom, etc., etc., and so on.

There is not a lot to love here as it was made on the cheap and everything about it shows that from the script to the fairly lackadaisical direction to the acting. Even so, the director could have given the viewers something to latch onto instead of this meandering exercise that was simply a waste of time once all was said and done. Night of a 1000 Cats had potential and while it was by no means the worst film ever made, it falls short of being very good.

2 out of 5