Blazer Films
Starring: Michael Anderson Jr., Oliver Grimm, Martin Tomlinson
Directed by: Philip Leacock

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

Synopsis: Set in a coastal English town during World War II, a group of boys too young to enlist carry out their own personal battles against perceived enemies.

Kitty Carnage Warning! This film has one of the most disturbing openings of any in the anals of cats in movies. The group of boys gather in the countryside on their bicycles before school. One of them is carrying a bag. As they prepare their game, the boy with the bag swings it around several times. He then releases a black cat from the bag. The cat, understandably, takes off running.

The boys count to ten and then chase after the cat, treating it like the quarry in a fox hunt.

The poor cat is chased by the boys on the bikes a long distance across the countryside.

It’s not clear what the boys plan to do if they catch the cat but as with most blood sport we assume their intentions are not good.

In the end the cat is chased all the way to a coastal cliff where, shockingly, it leaps over the edge. One of the boys almost goes off the edge as well. The boys look down at the crashing surf below but there is no sign of the cat. We are going on the assumption that the running scenes were shot in short spurts and that the cat actor didn’t jump off the cliff to its death, but the sequence is nonetheless highly disturbing, as is the non-cat conclusion of this film.

Final Mewsings: War brings out the worst in some people.

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