Dive into “Uninvited”, a gloriously goofy mutant killer cat-on-a-yacht horror movie that turns bad-movie junk into pure 80s genre joy.
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If you’ve read some of my previous entries for this column (or this website in general), you may know that I love a grade-A cinematic turkey. The pleasures of a good bad movie, while sometimes laced with mean-spiritedness, can equal or even surpass the pleasures of a regular good movie, if you’re in the right frame of mind.
And it is in that spirit that I bring you today’s entry, 1987’s Uninvited, a movie that has been on my Tubi list for what feels like forever.
Uninvited is the work of Niles, Michigan’s own Greydon Clark, a prolific director of cheapies who made low-budget entries in genres from horror to Blaxploitation to crime thrillers and Westerns in his three-plus-decade career. While his name may not be familiar, fans of Z-grade fare may recognize his 1985 film Final Justice, memorably lampooned in a 1999 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Several more of his films, including Uninvited, have been riffed by MST3K’s successor, Rifftrax.
It’s not that Clark has no idea how to make a movie, because it’s pretty clear that he does, but his budgetary limitations can’t help but let him down.
Uninvited mostly looks like a fairly typical low-budget 80s movie (albeit with a lot of atrocious ADR), but its ludicrous premise makes it more memorable than most movies of its ilk.
The film opens in some kind of laboratory, where two scientists (one of them played by Clark himself) implant a genetically mutated cat into the body of a pretty typical (and very cute) tabby cat. When the cat (quite easily, I might add) escapes their clutches, all hell breaks loose, as it dispatches the hapless researchers and a security guard.
Meanwhile, two young women, Suzanne and Bobbi (Shari Shattuck and Clare Carey), are invited to a party on a private yacht owned by the oily businessman Walter Graham (Alex Cord), and in turn invite three college guys (Eric Larson, Beau Dremann, and Rob Estes) to come along. And wouldn’t you know it, they even pick up that very same cat as their new pet.
Suffice it to say, things don’t go well for anyone.
Uninvited could rather charitably be described as “Alien, but on a boat and with a mutant cat instead of a spaceship with a Xenomorph.”
The mutant cat puppet, often seen emerging from the cat’s mouth to wreak havoc, is a delightfully goofy effect that any fan of cheesy practical effects is liable to love.
There are a couple of moments where the cat emerges abruptly to claim its next victim that made me burst out laughing, which may not have been the intention, but certainly works like gangbusters. What makes it extra funny is that, the rest of the time, it looks like a completely unremarkable (but, again, very cute) cat.
The movie is undeniably goofy, but everyone involved actually does decent work with what they’re given.
Cord, an actor with a long list of credits, plays a wonderfully smarmy, lecherous creep, and Clark somehow managed to get genuine Oscar winner George Kennedy (who won for his role in Cool Hand Luke) to play his right-hand man, Mike.
Veteran character actor Clu Gulager, recognizable to horror fans for his roles in Return of the Living Dead and A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, is also on hand to play another associate of Walter’s and do some ludicrously hammy comedy. I genuinely don’t know what he was going for in some of his scenes, but it’s fun to watch.
Evidently (according to the movie’s IMDb trivia page, anyway), $75,000 of the film’s $200,000 budget went to securing Kennedy, Gulager, and Cord. As far as I’m concerned, it was money well spent. The young actors all worked for scale (SAG’s minimum allowed payment), and they play their stock 80s archetypes well.
Filmmakers like Greydon Clark rarely get their flowers, but I think they usually know exactly what kind of movies they’re making.
Uninvited, much like Clark’s other work, isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it delivered precisely what I’d hoped: a cheap, cheesy, ridiculous piece of direct-to-video 80s fun.
Overall Rating (Out of 5 Butterflies): 3
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