Inglorious Bastet

The Cat Creature (1973)

Watchable made-for-TV movie directed by Curtis Harrington, based on a Robert Bloch script, featuring a Bast-worshipping, ancient Egyptian variant of a vampire who turns into a terrifying embodiment of pure evil—a black housecat.

Why put yourself through this anodyne, predictable exercise in cosy horror? The cast, that’s why. There’s Kent Smith (Oliver Reed in Val Lewton’s chiller, Cat People) as an antiquities appraiser, Keye Luke (Mr Wing from Gremlins) as a cat burglar, Gale Sondegaard as a louche occult store owner, velvet-voiced David Hedison (I could happily listen to him read the telephone directory … for at least ten minutes) as an amorous professor, Peter Lorre Jr as the gurning pawnbroker who gets it in the back, Milton Parsons as the creepy coroner, John Abbot as a know-it-all, and John Carradine as a sleazy hotel clerk sharing screen space with a sauced, sassy, scene-stealing (sadly uncredited) dwarf prostitute named Mabel. Oh, and Meredith Baxter from Family Ties is in it, too.