Movie Thoughts: Felidae (1994)

• Released: 3 November 1994
• Directed by: Michael Schaack
• Running time: 1 hr 22 min
• Rating 4/5

Synopsis

When arriving at a new neighborhood, a housecat named Francis starts to investigate a cult of cats and a series of feline murders taking place in the town.

My Thoughts

I've had this movie on my to-watch list for literally forever. I've known about this movie's existence for ages, yet never actually got to watching it in full. Probably for the better, since I first discovered this when I was just a young teen and it might've honestly just scarred me. But now it's time to take a look at Felidae. Is it any good? Let's see.

The first thing I wanted to say about this movie is just how gorgeous it looks. The animation is honestly superb. I'd seen stills and short clips before, but I didn't know it was this good. This movie is often put up there with Watership Down as one of the most dark animated animal xenofiction movies, however this one has the obvious better animation. That's not to say Watership has bad animation, but it's a bit more rough around the edges than Felidae.

I also just absolutely love the character designs in this. Most movies will have rather symmetrical character designs, but in this film almost every character has an asymmetrical and unique character design. Granted, not all of them look very cat-like, but since a major plot point in the film is that the cats are like this because of horrific animal experiments in the past, I can totally buy it.

The plot of the murder mystery and Claudandus sect was also very engaging and kept going in ways I didn't expect. Granted, it was a bit hard to follow sometimes, but it was definitely a story full of twists and turns that'll constantly have the watcher guessing.

I also really liked the characters, Bluebeard being my favorite. Claudandus/Pascal made for an interesting twist villain and I just liked how incredibly smart our main character was. 

This movie is very obviously not for children (if the violence, cults and ritualistic suicide weren't enough, there's also kitty sex), but it is absolutely one I'm glad I saw it at last. Just make sure you're paying the utmost attention, otherwise you may get a bit lost in all the twists and turns of the murder mystery.