A Young Judi Dench Was Told She Had “Every Single Thing ...

Let’s start with the good news. As advertised, 10 more Film4 productions have been added to the BritBox UK archive. These are as follows:

• A Room with a View (1995)

Helena Bonham Carter and Dame Maggie Smith star in this BAFTA-winning story of an Edwardian romance. When a well-to-do young women and her chaperone find themselves staying in Florence in rooms without views, two fellow guests step in to help.

• Alive & Kicking (1997)

A gifted young dancer has his life turned upside down when faced with death. Just when all seems dark around him, he meets an older man who becomes his lover, mentor and companion.

• Brassed Off (1996)

Pete Postlethwaite, Ewan McGregor and Tara Fitzgerald star in this heartfelt drama set in a deprived northern town. When a Yorkshire mining pit is closed down, its colliery band tries to win a music contest to restore community pride.

• Close My Eyes (2011)

Alan Rickman, Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves star in this tense drama exploring themes of forbidden intimacy. When a brother and sister's unconventional relationship crosses a line, her husband begins to suspect something is very wrong indeed.

• Dancing at Lughnasa (1998)

Stunningly shot drama starring Meryl Streep, Kathy Burke & Rhys Ifans. Five sisters living together in 1930s rural Ireland experience the many ways in which family life can bring both joy and heartbreak.

• Monsoon Wedding (2002)

BAFTA-winning comedy drama from director Mira Nair about a lively Punjabi wedding. As family gather from across the globe in Delhi to celebrate a marriage, themes of love & tradition are explored.

• The Raggedy Rawny (1989)

Bob Hoskins makes his directorial debut in this atmospheric tale of a shellshocked army deserter who falls in with a band of gypsies. Disguised as a woman to avoid being found by his military superiors, Tom is initially mistaken for a witch.

• Remembrance (1982)

Gary Oldman stars in his film debut alongside Timothy Spall in this story of young Navy recruits. A group of sailors head out for their last night of freedom in Plymouth before going on a six-month exercise.

• Velvet Goldmine (1998)

Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Christian Bale & Toni Collette star in this gloriously glam rock story inspired by David Bowie. A journalist attempts to discover why a rock star tried to fake his own death a decade earlier.

• Vroom (1988)

Clive Owen and David Thewlis star as Jake and Ringe in this epic 80s road movie. Two pals escape their bleak northern hometown for adventure in their bright pink Chevrolet.

Now, let's move on to the ominous part of the headline. No, it isn't a typo. 82 pieces of content have been removed from BritBox UK today. The majority of which almost certainly due to the expiry of roughly 1-year streaming agreements. Make no mistake either, we'll definitely see more of this throughout November as initial deals continue to expire. Here is everything confirmed to have left the service today in a conveniently numbered list which I compiled with the help of third party-website New On BritBox UK:

1. Age Before Beauty
2. Arthur & George
3. Beecham House
4. Being Poirot
5. The Billion Dollar Chicken Shop
6. Bouquet of Barbed Wire
7. Boy Meets Girl
8. Chatsworth,
9. Churchill's Secret
10. Cockroaches,
11. Colditz
12. The Company of Wolves
13. The Coroner
14. Dark Angel
15. Doctor in the House
16. Doctor Thorne
17. The Four Feathers
18. The Frankenstein Chronicles
19. The Game Show Serial Killer: Police Tapes
20. The Ganges with Sue Perkins
21. Ghostboat
22. Gino's Italian Escape
23. Girlfriends
24. Hamlet
25. Henry V
26. HIM
27. The Hit
28. Hold the Sunset
29. Inside Claridges
30. The Inspector Lynley Mysteries
31. The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: Pilot: a Great Deliverance
32. The Intelligence Men
33. James Martin's American Adventure
34. James Martin's French Adventure
35. James Martin's Great British Adventure
36. Judi Dench's Wild Borneo Adventure
37. Jungle Book
38. Lightfields
39. Lucan
40. Madeleine
41. The Magnificent Two
42. Maigret
43. Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure
44. My Family: Special: Christmas 2009: Special 2039 - A Christmas Oddity
45. My Mother and Other Strangers
46. Nature's Great Events
47. Nature's Great Migrations (Aka the Great Race)
48. Next of Kin
49. North and South
50. Ordinary Lies
51. Parade's End
52. Pollyanna
53. Posh People: Inside Tatler
54. Prick Up Your Ears
55. Prime Suspect 1973
56. QI XL
57. The Quiller Memorandum
58. Rescue: River Deep
59. Mountain High
60. Rillington Place
61. The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron
62. School Swap: The Class Divide
63. The Tamarind Seed
64. Tarka the Otter
65. That Riviera Touch
66. The Thief of Bagdad
67. Tina & Bobby
68. Top Gear
69. Top Gear: Africa Special
70. Top Gear: India Special
71. Top Gear: Patagonia Special
72. Trauma
73. Tutankhamun
74. Under Suspicion
75. Undercover Heart
76. Voyage of the Damned
77. The Widow
78. Wild Africa
79. Wild China
80. Wild Wales
81. Wilt
82. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

Now, there's no way around it - this list is long and concerning when taken at face value. Hell, it roughly accounts for 10% or more of the current overall library. However, the likelihood that all (or even the majority) of these titles are gone for good is fairly low. Going by past behaviour, this is probably the usual cycle of content being allowed to leave, then BritBox will decide what's worth re-signing within their relatively tight budget. At very least, the major BBC and ITV programming feel like prime candidates to return. If you want to argue that BritBox UK should communicate expiries to their customers in advance, I'm sure most everyone would agree. But I doubt that many of these will stay gone if ITV and BBC can help it.

Hiyas!
My name is Sever Bronny, and I've been a full-time author for almost six years now writing coming-of-age epic fantasy. I am looking to find an illustrator to not only kick off a new (third) series in December 2021, but re-do the covers of the entire first series, and eventually the entire second series (see below), for a total of 10+ book covers over the course of several years.
Please read this carefully, as the longterm nature of the relationship requires us to be a good fit for each other. I'm looking for professionalism, book cover design experience, accountability (I do not work with avatars, only real people), someone who understands the coming of age / young adult / epic fantasy genre, and has a top-tier skillset able to compete on an international stage with the best work out there.
I’m looking for traditional-style illustration, that “painted” look, as opposed to imagery that “looks digital” (see Dawn of Wonder by Jonathan Renshaw, or some of the original Dragonlance covers, or any major "painted" epic fantasy like LOTR for an example of the feel I’m going for). To clarify, I don't mind if it's done digitally, as long as it looks epic and painted.
A little about me: Here's a post I did on reddit a while back at the end of my first series, and here's another a bit later.
Due to the scope of the project, I'm looking to find someone who will ideally read the work, as I have a diehard fanbase that knows the characters and plots intimately (many of my readers read the work multiple times over: see my reader mail page on my website to get an idea of what I'm talking about, or even the Discussion page on said website). Thus, knowledge of the characters and world would be crucial, particularly because I’d like all four of the main characters’ faces on the cover, faces that grow as they age with the books. For example, in Arcane we have:
14-year-old Augum Stone (the main protagonist)
14-year-old Leera Jones (his eventual girlfriend)
14-year-old Bridget Burns (their best friend)
101-year-old Anna Atticus Stone (she looks like an older Judi Dench)
By the end of the second series, they’re seventeen and hardened. And I’ll eventually write a series (probably multiple) of the main trio as adults, so continuity is key (not to mention I'll write spin-off series' that are tied to the flagship series'). Further, there is an epic nature to my work that combines the adventures of The Hobbit with the characterization and fun of Harry Potter, albeit a bit darker. There is no cursing, no sex, but plenty of violence and harrowing scenes. My reader base is essentially the same as Harry Potter’s – lots of parents reading it with their kids, but then you have the parents enjoying the work too. And retirees love it because they get to relive their youth through it, so there's variety, but epic fantasy covers all those bases anyway.
And if you have a concept idea that would still appeal to that audience, I'd still be interested in hearing it.
(Note: you do not need to have read the work to apply for this project)
The cover rebrand would obviously be applied across all formats, which are ebooks, paperbacks, and audiobooks (the first series was narrated by Grammy and Hugo winner Stefan Rudnicki, known for Ender's Game).
The timeline is flexible, but I’m hoping to have the covers of the first series (The Arinthian Line) ready for the summefall of 2021.
Basically I'm looking for an illustrator who would be a good fit all around, think they'd be able to read (and enjoy) the work, and will work with me as my catalogue expands over time.
My current catalogue is as follows, which is due for a rebrand:
The Arinthian Line Series: (You'd be shooting to have all the covers ready for summefall 2021)
Arcane (The Arinthian Line, book 1)
Riven (The Arinthian Line, book 2)
Valor (The Arinthian Line, book 3)
Clash (The Arinthian Line, book 4)
Legend (The Arinthian Line, book 5)
Fury of a Rising Dragon series: (You'd likely do new covers for this in 2022/2023)
Burden's Edge (Fury of a Rising Dragon, book 1)
Honor's Price (Fury of a Rising Dragon, book 2)
Mercy's Trial (Fury of a Rising Dragon, book 3)
Champion's Wrath (Fury of a Rising Dragon, book 4) (December 2020)*
Unannounced series Book 1 (December 2021 launch, and you'd be doing the cover for this series as well)
Again, you do not need to have read my work to apply for this job, only be able to read it later should you be accepted.
I only publish about one book a year, so time frames shouldn't be an issue for future books.
I’d require a digital book cover, as well as a print-ready paperback PDF (I’d supply the paperback cover template for each book, which would include a spine and back), and an e-version of the audiobook cover. I don't mind bringing in a typographer into the project if that isn't something that you do. I’d also obviously provide you with the Kindle ebooks of all my work.
If you think you'd be a good fit for this project, please leave a link to your portfolio in the comments below, a link to your rates, as well as why you think you'd be a good fit. I'll contact you privately if I'm interested in taking the next step.
I don't micromanage, have worked with cover designers before, and respect the artists I work with and want to make sure they're happy and comfortable (I'm a former musician and now an author, so I know what it's like). Again, this is about establishing a longterm relationship across multiple series'.
Looking forward to your responses, but don't feel rushed as I'll be monitoring this over the next few weeks, and me and my wife will vet each submission thoroughly. I mean that; take your time reading this post over and posting a submission. If you have any questions, please post them below (and please avoid messaging me directly as your submission might get lost in the shuffle).
Thank you to everyone who applies,
Sever Bronny
P.S.: If I don't contact you or reply, that does not AT ALL mean that I don't like your work (there's an abundance of ridiculously amazing talent here), it only means I might not think your particular style will necessarily be a good fit for what I'm looking for. After all, this is a huge commitment on both our ends, and I write in a somewhat-niche genre.
P.P.S. If you yourself aren't interested but know someone who might be a good fit, I'd be grateful if you forwarded this post to them.
P.P.P.S. The $500 budget is only an artificial stand-in for per-cover design, not reflective of your work. Please let me know your rates for cover design, or point me toward your website with your rates. I believe in paying artists fairly.

Hiyas!
My name is Sever Bronny, and I've been a full-time author for almost six years now writing coming-of-age epic fantasy. I am looking to find an illustrator to not only kick off a new (third) series in December 2021, but re-do the covers of the entire first series, and eventually the entire second series (see below), for a total of 10+ book covers over the course of several years.
Please read this carefully, as the longterm nature of the relationship requires us to be a good fit for each other. I'm looking for professionalism, book cover design experience, accountability (I do not work with avatars, only real people), someone who understands the coming of age / young adult / epic fantasy genre, and has a top-tier skillset able to compete on an international stage with the best work out there.
I’m looking for traditional-style illustration, that “painted” look, as opposed to imagery that “looks digital” (see Dawn of Wonder by Jonathan Renshaw, or some of the original Dragonlance covers, or any major "painted" epic fantasy like LOTR for an example of the feel I’m going for). To clarify, I don't mind if it's done digitally, as long as it looks epic and painted.
A little about me: Here's a post I did on reddit a while back at the end of my first series, and here's another a bit later.
Due to the scope of the project, I'm looking to find someone who will ideally read the work, as I have a diehard fanbase that knows the characters and plots intimately (many of my readers read the work multiple times over: see my reader mail page on my website to get an idea of what I'm talking about, or even the Discussion page on said website). Thus, knowledge of the characters and world would be crucial, particularly because I’d like all four of the main characters’ faces on the cover, faces that grow as they age with the books. For example, in Arcane we have:
14-year-old Augum Stone (the main protagonist)
14-year-old Leera Jones (his eventual girlfriend)
14-year-old Bridget Burns (their best friend)
101-year-old Anna Atticus Stone (she looks like an older Judi Dench)
By the end of the second series, they’re seventeen and more hardened. And I’ll eventually write a series (probably multiple) of the main trio as adults, so continuity is key (not to mention I'll write spin-off series' that are tied to the flagship series'). Further, there is an epic nature to my work that combines the adventures of The Hobbit with the characterization and fun of Harry Potter, albeit a bit darker. There is no cursing, no sex, but plenty of violence and harrowing scenes. My reader base is essentially the same as Harry Potter’s – lots of parents reading it with their kids, but then you have the parents enjoying the work too. And retirees love it because they get to relive their youth through it, so there's variety, but epic fantasy covers all those bases anyway.
And if you have a concept idea that would still appeal to that audience, I'd still be interested in hearing it.
(Note: you do not need to have read the work to apply for this project)
The cover rebrand would obviously be applied across all formats, which are ebooks, paperbacks, and audiobooks (the first series was narrated by Grammy and Hugo winner Stefan Rudnicki, known for Ender's Game).
The timeline is flexible, but I’m hoping to have the covers of the first series (The Arinthian Line) ready for the summefall of 2021.
Basically I'm looking for an illustrator who would be a good fit all around, think they'd be able to read (and enjoy) the work, and will work with me as my catalogue expands over time.
My current catalogue is as follows, which is due for a rebrand:
The Arinthian Line Series: (You'd be shooting to have all the covers ready for summefall 2021)
Arcane (The Arinthian Line, book 1)
Riven (The Arinthian Line, book 2)
Valor (The Arinthian Line, book 3)
Clash (The Arinthian Line, book 4)
Legend (The Arinthian Line, book 5)
Fury of a Rising Dragon series: (You'd likely do new covers for this in 2022/2023)
Burden's Edge (Fury of a Rising Dragon, book 1)
Honor's Price (Fury of a Rising Dragon, book 2)
Mercy's Trial (Fury of a Rising Dragon, book 3)
Champion's Wrath (Fury of a Rising Dragon, book 4) (December 2020)*
Unannounced series Book 1 (December 2021 launch, and you'd be doing the cover for this series as well)
Again, you do not need to have read my work to apply for this job, only be able to read it later should you be accepted.
I only publish about one book a year, so time frames shouldn't be an issue for future books.
I’d require a digital book cover, as well as a print-ready paperback PDF (I’d supply the paperback cover template for each book, which would include a spine and back), and an e-version of the audiobook cover. I don't mind bringing in a typographer into the project if that isn't something that you do. I’d also obviously provide you with the Kindle ebooks of all my work.
If you think you'd be a good fit for this project, please leave a link to your portfolio in the comments below, a link to your rates, as well as why you think you'd be a good fit. I'll contact you privately if I'm interested in taking the next step.
I don't micromanage, have worked with cover designers before, and respect the artists I work with and want to make sure they're happy and comfortable (I'm a former musician and now an author, so I know what it's like). Again, this is about establishing a longterm relationship across multiple series'.
Looking forward to your responses, but don't feel rushed as I'll be monitoring this over the next few weeks, and me and my wife will vet each submission thoroughly. I mean that; take your time reading this post over and posting a submission. If you have any questions, please post them below (and please avoid messaging me directly as your submission might get lost in the shuffle).
Thank you to everyone who applies,
Sever Bronny
P.S.: If I don't contact you or reply, that does not AT ALL mean that your work is awful (there's an abundance of ridiculously amazing talent here), it only means I might not think your style will necessarily be a good fit for what I'm looking for. After all, this is a huge commitment on both our ends, and my genre is very niche specific.
P.P.S. If you yourself aren't interested but know someone who might be a good fit, I'd be grateful if you forwarded this post to them.

Don Kowalski is the name. I got a message from a Belgian girl, asking for my help. So far I don’t have any evidence, any facts – just her story.
I have dealt with…things, for a long time and let me tell you: some stories are just stories. However, some stories are more, are true, those are usually the ones you wish weren’t true but they are, even though you can't make any sense of them. I’m inclined to let this go, just be done with it, just a poor girl out of her mind.
If any of you know about this stuff or have seen an odd version with the same name as the mentioned film, this atrocious animation massacre called “CATS”, please let me know. So, here’s the girl’s story.
Dear Mr. Kowalski, I don't know if you remember me, but we met back in 2016 when I was an au pair for your friend Sara. You came by once - all drunk - and broke the mirror in her bathroom. We didn't really talk as Sara was fast to kick you out, but she told me you were into all weird... stuff and that you had been with the police some years ago.
I'm writing you because nobody will believe me what happened. We watched this movie but it was not like we expected. I live in Tournai, Belgium. I live there with my girlfriend Belle. My girlfriend is gone, and I don't know what to do. Nobody will believe me they just say she ditched town, but I don't, I can't accept that. Please help me. Please.
Hey, I got your message. I don't really know what I should tell you kid? Your text is hardly understandable. I know some guys on the internet near your location might be of help. If you can pull yourself together a bit and tell me what happened, they could maybe try to help you.
Best of luck and stay strong. Don.
#####################################################################
Dear Mr. Kowalski, thanks for your reply, I guess. I wrote it up better. Please help or your friends help. Please, meow.
#####################################################################
It was already getting dark outside, it was winter.
"That's fucked up!" I laughed at my girlfriend Belle. The trailer for CATS had just dropped on YouTube. I bet you horror-hungry guys have seen it too. We laughed endlessly at the bad uncanny faces and Judi Dench's wristwatch.
"Want to go see it?" Belle asked me.
"Are you serious?" I asked back.
She shrugged. “Sure, why not? Have a good laugh at this mess for a quick buck.” Well, it wasn't what I usually watched but why not?
The movie was to be released on December 20th 2019. We wanted to go as soon as possible. Days passed and I forgot about the whole thing. Then, Belle sent me a link. It was from a small artsy cinema that only showed those oh so deep and thoughtful films like "Jackie" or "Orient Express". No Marvel to be found there. I knew the place next to the rundown train station, just over the bridge and you're there.
The link showed in big red letters "FABULOUS EX SANGUINA EXTRA SCREENING: THE NEW CATS!".
Perfect! Belle and I agreed this would be super funny, though I wondered why I didn't find anything else about some early special showing. I guessed that the owner must have gotten their hand on some pirated version and was probably desperate for money. Nobody I knew ever went there.
So, on December 15th, 2019, I got into the train around 5 pm. I looked forward to spend time with my girl, we would have a fun night, for sure. People were commuting home from work and I looked up early reviews, most of us staring in our phones, maybe we just don’t see the true terrors of life anymore?
This was going to be hilarious, I thought to myself as I watched the trailer again. How had anyone thought to make such a mess of a movie? I mean seriously? Ian McKellen as a cat?
I got off the train, few people around me. The sun was already down but like the last few winters, there was no snow, just freezing wind blowing in my face. I marched downhill to the bridge, over the street and there it was already: the most crappiest old cinema ever.
I had been here once as a child, I think, but never had I thought to go there again. Most people had forgotten about the place already. I remember how I wondered to myself, how it was even possible that it was still open at all? Belle stood at the entrance, uncomfortably chatting with some hipster. I got closer and I realized he was no hipster at all but a homeless guy, maniacally rambling the most insane things, shouting at her getting closer and closer following every time she made a step backwards.
I ran up to them, but he didn't look at me once just kept talking. From far off I couldn't hear what he said but now I did, and I hear his words still in my head, an ignored warning of sorts as I know now.
"Maggie and Gracie there you are there you are! Come, come! Come on, puss, puss, meow, meow!" he screamed at us, throwing yellow spittle all around the grey building. I was scared as hell and just pulled Belle by her arm through the entrance into the cinema.
"Niles, Niles the kids, the kids!" I heard him screech through the glass door. There was a middle-aged couple inside the small ragged lounge all dirty and red, the couple looked scared and scared they looked at us, as numb and non-understanding as I and Belle were.
"Are you okay?" asked the man. "I already told them to call the police." He shook his head in disbelief.
Belle and I took a little while to calm down, just standing there hoping he wouldn’t come in after us.
"Relax folks! He's mostly harmless," said a woman from behind the counter, her voice sounded terrible, utterly inhuman, like nails on blackboard. She didn’t even look at us, just did her nails, filing them, blowing away the pulverized material, filing on.
There was a popcorn machine on the counter, but it wasn't even turned on. The whole place was dirty and filthy, something like vomit was in front of the corner and the sound system, playing some elevator jazz jingle, was unnerving me as it sounded just...off like somebody had recorded a recording and distorted the sound. I went up to the woman who kept on smiling, doing her nails.
"He doesn't seem harmless!" I shouted at her as Belle put an arm on me, trying to soothe me.
"Just relax!" she giggled. Her voice... I just flinched, it was so terrible. She stared at me, her hair a big black curly mass on top of her head. She didn’t even wear work-clothing but some short leopard skirt and a tasteless blue blouse.
"You want some suggestions?" she asked, hands pressed firmly on her hips, the nail file protruding from her hand like a horn.
I stepped backwards, left it to Belle to talk with her. I was so angry. The couple just stared in disbelief, whispering that I was right, at least that was something.
Belle told the woman we were here for the special screening and the woman said, again with the high-pitched glass-shattering voice: "Oh! CAAAAATS! That's great that's the only one we play. Come on step in!"
She gestured down to the right to the, apparently, only screenroom of the whole place. This movie better be funny, else I would call the police on them. She didn't ask for any money or gave us tickets, so we just got in, the couple right behind, followed us.
The disheveled man outside was now sitting on the street staring at us licking his hand and slapping himself with it.
We got inside the cinema hall and the canvas was still all white, all clean and pure. There was nobody checking us in, of course, there were only about six rows of seats and we took our places in the last one, warming up a bit again, giggling, cuddling. I calmed down a bit, I knew I had to ease up, Belle was as grown a woman as I and could take care of herself. Even though, the thought of her getting hurt was the most painful image my brain could produce for me.
"This is so fucked up!" said Belle. The couple, sitting the row before us, turned around and smiled, then laughed at each other.
“Let’s enjoy this train-wreck!” proclaimed the man. It was funny to see adults, true old adults, doing what we did. They seemed happy and had fun together. Maybe one day Belle and I would still do the same? Maybe watch CATS 5 then, already?
The lights went out, then it started. There was no logos no movie production company intros, no trailers. Just a short “starring” but it was gone before I could read the name. This was certainly odd, wasn’t there all kinds of Hollywood-stars in it?
Then the screen went total black. It took so long, I think the man before us was about to get up to call someone in to fix it, when something changed. It was just a man, stepping into the black screen from the side of the frame. He wore a suit and had black hair and seemed very... British.
"Hello ladies and gentlemen! It is my pleasure to introduce you, finally, to my new version of CATS!" then he went off, a bush of silver in his hair, glittering about.
“What the hell was that?” asked Belle rolling her eyes in annoyance.
“It’s art,” I said mockish.
Then the movie finally started, hallelujah!
The first scene showed a dirty room, apparently filmed with a shaky video camera. The floor was all concrete and filled with filth and dried up stains. What they were I don’t know, might be blood I think now. There was a person in the room, small and hidden in the corner, the back turned towards the audience. The person cowered in the corner, hands over his head. This was definitely not what I had expected from CATS.
"Well, that's odd," said the woman before us. Belle and I looked at each other, she raised an eyebrow.
"Weird," I said and shrugged. Head locked back onto the screen.
The person on the screen started to cry and to moan and tried to make itself even smaller, grey and filthy it was like a rat from the cloaca. The face must have been pressed directly on the wall.
"Why do you cry, Jon?" asked a deep booming voice off the screen, it shook me to the heart. The sound effects were really good!
"Why?!" asked the voice again when the person just kept sobbing on about, why then I didn’t know.
"I can't... Please," said the person as it turned around. Just for a split second, it was barely visible, hardly at all, the face looked like it had been melted off, down to the ivory bone, but the cut was so fast it was hardly possible for me to tell.
Cut: a young man with curled brown hair, was sitting in a kitchen and read his newspaper (like literally print) and stroked the dog to his feet who looked lovingly up at him. He put the cup on the table when all started shaking.
For a moment I really even considered it was an earthquake, but a quick glance around made my mistake evident. How crappy the plot was, the effects were really good. The cup fell over and the little dog started to whimper and to crouch at the man’s feet.
"No... No…" the man whispered and put his hands over his head, tears streaming down his face.
“Is that the guy from the other room?” asked Belle.
“Where’s Judi Dench?” I asked.
"Where is it?" whispered the voice from before, now directly into my ear. I jumped up in my seat as I heard it and screamed. Belle and the couple looked at me. The man asked if I also heard it while our partners just stared at us. This was really creepy. Just a creepy movie, right?
"I don't like that," said Belle and squeezed my hand. I put my arm around her and told her) it was nothing, just a movie, just good effects. Boy, I was wrong.
It had appeared on the screen by then. The body of the voice. I couldn't even make out what it was at first, just a shadow of some thing.
Next cut: the young man cowered in the kitchen, similar like in the first scene, his dog barked in panic as the shadow got closer.
Next Cut: The shadow was a second man. He was all naked, but something was wrong, his skin seemed peeled off at some parts, while other parts were just bone. Where some skin was left, it was covered in filthy orange hair, nearly as long as a woman's. His face wasn't visible as he had an orange bag over his head. On the bag though, was drawn in crude manner a cat's head, smiling wide.
"WHERE IS IT?" shouted the voice, raspy and metallic. Belle jumped in her seat, burrowing her face in my shoulders.
“This isn’t the CATS we wanted!” I whispered to her.
“Seems like a fucked-up art film,” she said.
Next cut: The man without skin was whistling and something followed him through the door. It was an armada of cats, all hairless, filling up the floor, hissing like crazy. The flayed man got on a chair, sitting there calmly, one leg over the other. With a long claw-like finger he sliced the skin over his ribcage and brought forth an oldstyle zippo-lighter.
He produced a cigarette from under his nailbed, before he burned a little hole in the bag where his mouth must have been, surely burning his lips but if so he didn’t make sound. Afterwards he lighted the cigarette, the mass of hairless cats all over him and the now shrieking young man and the whimpering little dog crouching all of them turning the normal kitchen into a nightmare Botticelli.
Then the flayed man smoked and smoked on, before he looked directly into the camera. “It is my great pleasure to introduce you, young three blossomed flowers and the rustly old gent here, to the finer revelations of the outside universe,” he said.
The couple looked up to us and then at each other.
“What the fuck!” said Belle.
Then the flayed man continued, the cat-drawing on his bagface staring mindlessly at us. “By design of all this unshaped handmade matter it is nonsense to think it is without goal in its immaculate formation. It is by art and experience of the craftsmen of the highest order a perfectly produced realization of an opinion rarely seen these days,” he said. “My delight is cut short however, if I may articulate the thought in a rudimentary form, that entropy is seen as enemy when in all rightly ways its congress with such fine specimen as you, it is, by all rights and orders known to gods and men, a perfect solution to the unquarreling mess you produced in the current inhibition of your laws,” he said. “In all serendipity this might have produced for the offspring of your kind, I will not allow it to flow so unrighteous on this good earth. May it be havoc or war or pestilence, I can certainly assure my kind has taken a keen interest in goading aforementioned entropy into the right places of this locus. Thus, finally, I assure, you need not worry over cosmic coincidence, as very soon a fate of molded matter is awaiting you,” he said and blew out blue smoke, before he continued. “Yes ladies and gentleman, I said it’s awaiting you.”
We all just looked in shock at another. What the hell was this movie?
“I’m going to get this fixed. I’m not watching this shit!” said the man in the row before us, getting up from his place, when the movie cut again and finally showed the true CATS we have been there to see.
“Finally!” said Belle, clapping her hands, relaxing.
“About time!” shouted the man from the row before us and sat down on his place. For a half minute they showed us all the glory of the uncanny CATS we had wanted to see. Probably the woman from the counter had played us a trick or something.
Then it went downhill.
Next cut: A woman, tied down, young men pouring gasoline over her.
Next cut: WW2 soldiers fighting each other with rocks and sticks.
Next cut: children pocking a maggot-riddled corpse with sticks.
Next cut: A man slicing his skin with a razorblade, his face already a mess of flesh-stripes.
Next cut: Tentacled things twisting and coiling in a dark pit.
Next cut: Close-up of a fly crawling over what must have been shit.
Next cut: an orange cat with a nearly human face, smiling and staring.
Next cut: A man in a white robe choking himself.
Next cut, next cut, next cut, next cut…I don’t know what else there was, but this went on so fast we didn’t even have the time to say something to each other, lest get out of this hellhole of a cinema. Belle had hidden herself in my chest, her hand tightly clinging onto mine.
Next cut: Again, the flayed man, the drawn face of his cat-bag staring at us. The camera zoomed out and heard the most agonizing screams. He was bowing over a woman, doing something to her face, blood and god-knows-what coming out of it as she shook under him, spilling all over even onto the lense of the camera, though I didn’t get a look on what she looked like. “Yes, ladies and gentleman, I said its awaiting you.”
"Please, let's go," said Belle, as she just started to walk out the room, not even waiting for me. I got up too, this got way to freakish I wanted to mock a bad movie not watch some version of "A Serbian Film”, and followed straight after Belle, down the stairs. I took a glimpse at the screen as we walked down towards the door: The flayed man had thrown himself on the whimpering man from before. He wailed in agony as he was burned to a crisp, simply by the touch. Within a second he was just a charred smoking mass of pinkish mud.
The skinless man got up and took the dog who whelped in frantic fear. With a loud slurp he devoured him whole, his mouth a gaping maw with the tongue whirling about anaconda in red it stuck to the dog and rolled it up real tight and then it went all back into the mouth, hidden in the orange bag as the head of the dog was still visible inside of the belly of the flayed man. The muffled barks, pure angst, sounded real.
"Already leaving?" I heard the middle-aged man ask from behind. I turned around and saw their faces. They grinned from ear to ear, but their eyes, meow, their eyes were gone! Just empty black holes staring at us. Belle shrieked behind me and as I turned, there was nothing.
I threw myself at the door, but she wasn’t behind it. Simply gone. The entrance hall was now filled with people.
There was a man in a butler-costume now too behind the counter. He and the woman with the high-pitched voice laughed at me, bursting my ear drums. There were two women next to the door, one of them stuffing herself with food and in the center of it all, suddenly a piano. A man played like a maniac on it. He wore sunglasses though it was dark outside and he followed my every step as I ran through them.
They all laughed as I ran out! Outside the cinema, I called for Belle but got no answer. I looked in panic around me and there he was: The flayed man! I saw his face. It was so... familiar. He got down on all four of his mutilated limbs, like an animal he slowly preyed towards me. I ran across the street, all empty all dark. Up to the train station.
"WHERE IS IT?" I heard behind me, but he was gone.
At the train station there was an old man. I cried and babbled and was a mad mess as he called the police. Nobody has seen Belle. They tell me the old rundown cinema had closed years ago. There was nothing about a missing couple on the news, or about Belle. Where is she. Where is it? WHERE IS IT?
I forwarded the message to my friend Jacques down in France, living not far from the Belgian border. He got back to me yesterday.
Hey Don, spooky stuff. I went up there but there's nothing. The place is closed, and all boarded up. What's really creepy though was them damn cats. Must have taken up there. Meowing all over the place. Honestly, didn't dare to get in, bad vibes were too big. I asked at townhall and they said place was abandoned, didn’t even know the name of the current owner. Best stay away from that shit. Jacques.
That's all I know, for now. I know most of you love horror films and that's all fine enough but stay away from Hollywood, dark stars are out there watching you, waiting, preying.

I just saw the movie and I have to say that even if I didn't quite like the trailers, I still had a little part of me that believed they could do a good movie.
Of course, normally Butler isn't black and Root is not a woman. But the books were written almost 20 years ago and you can bring changes for storytelling sake. If the characters are well written and the story they take part in is good, you can have your way.
I wondered if I should reread the bboks before seeing the movie. And boy what a good idea I had not to do it and let the books for after.
​
I can't even begin to understand how such a monstrosity of a movie can even see the light. And what angries and confuses me even more is that I really think there is potential for something in the middle of this.
The CGI was good in my opinion, I liked how they represented LEP uniforms and Haven city.
But then comes the fun. It seems like they have put books one and two in a blender and tried to make something viable with what came out. There are so many things that are thrown in you face without an explanation and even like that they don't hold by their own flawed logic. Shielding, time freeze, mesmer, lava ride....
And then come the characters. Each one flatter and blander that the next with incoherencies that would make anyone a little bit invested in the books scream. Who TF idea's was it to reveal Butler's name right away. It's meant to be a secret and that also part of what makes you bond with Juliet. And they could still have their little joke. Something like "He's not the butler, he's Butler". And if they gave it like 10 seconds more of thought than I did they could have come up with something really funny I think. And while I'm on Butler, why is he presented like a simple butler then ? Where is the dangerous man that can kill you 20 different ways without recurring to the armory he is wearing. What happened to the troll fight ? I wanted to see him fist fight a troll while wearing an armor. It's pat of the character developpement. Now he just assf***ed it with a chandelier.
Then, Artemis doing sports ? I get that they try to have an appeal for a young public but that's like Harry Potter being happy and well treatd at the Dursleys. That is so much out of character. And why does he act like a 12 years-old ? A great part of what makes him a menace in the books is that he speaks and acts like someone much older. Not making "friends forever" with a previous hostage 20 minutes after freeing her.
And Root ? What happened to the cigar somking, red-faced, prone to yelling commander ? The worst part is that Judi Dench is not the problem. Give her a cigar, a big gun at her belt and good lines to shout and you have yourself a perfecly good Root !
But the worst of all is Mulch. It's the only character that is somewhat resembling the book. Joking, always kind of sassy, overconfident, irrespectful. But why is he a giant dwarf ? Why take something good (or at least not a steaming pile of feces) and ruin it with a irrelevant flaw just because ?
And what about the Kelp brothers, Cudgeon, Foaly, Opale Koboï, Chix Verbil... who were butchered at best.
​
Now, I have to say that I really stongly suspect that the script was rewritten and changed countless times, as well as the movie we are given is certainly not the director cut. But I cannot fathom how someone could see a movie like this and just give it green light. It's unnecessary complicated for people who don't know the books and and insult to everyone who loves them. So what's their target.
I sincerely hope that if something good can come out of the movie is that some people will stumble upon the books and discover the wonderful universe Eoin Colfer put so much work into

Trailer
I have not read the novels by Eoin Colfer that inspired "Artemis Fowl," but now, having seen the movie, I feel like I need to. Maybe they will help fill me in on parts of the story that I missed, even though I was doing a fairly good job at keeping track with mental notes. The movie is silly beyond comprehension, and even if it weren't silly, it would still be beyond comprehension. How was this assembled out of such ill-fitting pieces? It's as if somebody took two pretty-decent feature length movies, broke them down into bits, and re-edited them into one film, but without any discernible planning or construction. The result just sort of lies there.
We open on the coast of Ireland, as a media frenzy descends on Fowl Manor, where the stolen collection of world-famous relics is linked to wealthy businessman Artemis Fowl (Colin Farrell). Arrested at the manor, Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad) is interrogated by British intelligence and claims that his employer has stolen the powerful Aculos, a magic item capable of teleporting people or objects to and from any point on the globe. Offering to prove the existence of magic, Diggums begins to tell the long story of Artemis Fowl Jr. Not to sound like a grouch, but if the man opens his story by claiming that fairies and magic exist, I'm sure the authorities would send him straight to the asylum without any further questioning.
Young Artemis (Ferdia Shaw) is a 12-year-old genius. He has outsmarted chess champions, won architectural design competitions, and he considers Albert Einstein to be one of his few intellectual peers (the fact that Einstein is no longer alive is, apparently, beside the point.) While heading away on business, Artemis Sr. is captured by the evil Opal (Hong Chau), a wicked pixie who demands possession of the Aculos, currently located in the Fowl's secret safe. Also after the Aculos are the LEPrecon squad located at the center of the Earth, with Commander Root, played by an unenthusiastic Judi Dench with a voice that resembles the victims you see in anti-smoking commercials. The character is made to be frowning and shaking her head at incompetence most of the time, so clearly Dench had no need for preparation.
Mulch calls Ireland the most magical place in the world. Speaking of magic, for families that are concerned about this worldview issue, that’s likely the biggest thing they’ll need to navigate here. Root puts her faith in Holly (Lara McDonnell), the daughter of Beechwood, a once trusted member of the LEPrecon, and Artemis Sr.'s fallen friend. For the most part, fairies are restricted from using magic on humans other than to prevent those humans from discovering the existence of fairies. However, this rule is broken by Holly multiple times, as she uses her magic in order to heal a few humans, one whose injuries would have been fatal.
Soon captured by Artemis and his bodyguard, Dom (Nonso Anozie), Holly inspires a full-fledged fairy invasion, leaving the intelligent Artemis to defend Fowl Manor and take possession of the Aculos to get his father back. But of course, the story requires a bit of comedic relief with Josh Gad's character, who is given the ability to elongate his mouth and digest anything in front of him. God only knows what this would have looked like if it were projected on a theater screen. Most of the effects are at once hideous and bland - like a rough draft of a CGI that filmmakers would show to studio bosses only to ask for more time and money to create something releasable.
The story moves at a curiously detached pace, which is odd for a usually eager and ebullient director like Kenneth Branagh. Was he inhibited by the technical restraints he put upon himself? Characters will turn up for the first time, seem terrifically important, and disappear. If at many moments I had stopped the film and asked anybody around me who that person is, and what they were doing and why, I think they'd have been stuck for an answer. Artemis has an extraordinarily limited case: he's a supporting character in his own movie, given absolutely nothing of interest to do other than stand and look befuddled. Colin Farrell is put in a crucial role, but he does seem a little ridiculous trying to bring coiled intensity to a spectacularly one-dimensional character.
The fairies of "Artemis Fowl" are based in Irish folklore. They consist of several different mythical creatures, such as dwarves, centaurs, goblins and pixies. The world-building has potential, but Branagh does not capture it. The movie was obviously sent through the tunnels of development hell, but even without that, the production could have at least tried a little bit harder at making the characters more important than the plot. I wasn't excited, I wasn't amused, and while the movie would bore and alienate its audience, I felt especially bad for the fan base of the novels, who will undoubtedly write reviews that are a lot more scathing than this one.

Up until about two weeks ago, I had only seen three of the Daniel Craig Bond movies (CR, SF, SP) but since NTTD has been pushed back, and Quarantine has given me a lot more time of my hands, I figured I would watch the rest of the official series. It’s safe to say I am a Bond fan now :)

1. Casino Royale- I know recently it’s become the ‘cool’ thing to hate on Craig’s take as Bond, or his tenure as Bond or whatever people like to bitch about, but Casino Royale really reminds you why his Bond is so popular. A lot of entries in my top ten I could get sick of after awhile, but like GoldenEye, Casino Royale really only gets better on rewatch. Craig is fantastic as a young double O agent who is overly confident but at the same time charming as hell. The movie really strips away all of what we know of Bond completely by the end of the movie and leaves us with a hardened agent. I used to dislike the stuff with Vesper, but recently I’ve been able to really appreciate the value in her character. Le Chiffre is actually a villain you can understand, and every scene is masterfully done.
2. Licence To Kill- When talking about TLD, I was pretty much just gushing over Dalton, but the reason why is that everything that is set up in that movie, is paid off in LTK. While I would have loved a third Dalton movie, the two he is featured in really give a lot of closure to his character in my eyes. He’s introduced as this agent who is more of a reluctant hero, as he doesn’t like taking orders and is questioning his occupation as a killer. All of this comes to a head when his friends are maimed and killed, and he seeks revenge against a dangerous drug cartel. It almost makes Dalton’s Bond feel tragic in a way, like he’s destined to always be a killer. Not that this movie is completely depressing, it honestly has some of the best action in the series, and Sanchez is definitely the most underrated Bond Villain. Can’t get enough of Dalton’s Bond, but LTK, like Skyfall, just feels like an event in the series.
3. GoldenEye- Does anyone really dislike GoldenEye? I don’t think I’ve ever seen or met someone who doesn’t like this movie. Well it’s not really hard to see why, because as Bond was launched into the 90s, this soft reboot really took Bond in an incredibly exciting direction. The scale of this movie feels so much larger than anything else in the franchise and is always fun to watch. Brosnan feels so fresh and new, almost like a predecessor to Connery. He’s cool and confident, and his scene with M is one of my favorites. Could watch this movie at anytime and still love it.
4. Goldfinger- Maybe the most Iconic Bond movie, Goldfinger is just really entertaining but also groundbreaking for establishing the Bond formula. Goldfinger himself is easily Connery’s best villain, maybe just because he feels so determined and isn’t connected to SPECTRE or anything. Connery is amazing, the set pieces still hold up, and is just a fantastic film I’m it’s own right.
5. The Living Daylights- Timothy Dalton is without a doubt my favorite Bond. I find him to be a perfect amalgamation of all the Bonds. He’s got the ruthless cold demeanor of Craig, the sensitivities of Lazenby, he has no trouble finding humor in situations like Moore, he can easily charm a woman like Connery and he knows how to use a gadget from Q just like Brosnan. I know now Dalton is in no ways underrated, maybe only by the general public, but I’m really glad he’s getting a fair shake these days. While I prefer LTK, Daylights introduces us to Dalton’s fresh take and also includes my favorite Bond girl, simply because for once in the series, Bond actually seems to be in love. The only thing I could say against this movie is that the Villain is unfortunately very weak, but other than that, a great movie in the series.
6. Skyfall- Coming up on almost 25 movies in a franchise, Bond movies can often feel pretty disposable but Skyfall really feels like an event in the series. Coming 4 years after one of the worst movies in the franchise, the plot line questioning if Bond is up for his missions feels really relevant and actually attempts to explore the character. Despite the first act being a little slow moving, once the film introduces Silva, my favorite Bond villain, it really becomes something special. Judi Dench’s M delivering her testimony in court spliced with Silva wreaking havoc in London still gives me chills. Amazing visuals, a standout plot and Villain, and Craig at the absolute top of his game.
7. Live And Let Die- I feel like Moore’s first outing is one of the more underrated or at least under appreciated moments in the series. When I think of the Moore era, with all the quips and gadgets and camp, I immediately think of scenes from LALD. It’s also one of the weirder movies in the franchise, dealing with Voodoo and seemingly attempting a blaxploitation film. I love the villains, I love how weird it is, I love Solitaire who’s easily one of my favorite Bond girls. This is just a really easy to digest and entertaining movie to me.
8. Thunderball- One of my favorite parts of these movies is easily the stunts and action set pieces so it’s strange that that is my least favorite aspect of Thunderball. I’m sure they were impressive in 1965, but 55 years later I wouldn’t say it really holds up. That said, this is one of my favorite Connery performances. It’s just so entertaining watching him interact with the environments and the different characters and it’s clear that he’s having fun, so I always feel like I’m having fun when I watch this movie.
9. For Your Eyes Only- Considering Moore was relatively old to play Bond when he started his Tenure, five films in it really starts to become apparent. I’m someone who definitely prefers a younger Bond, but this is a rare occasion in the series where an older Bond actually fits in the story. This movie I find to be the most interesting Moore film and while its not high art or anything, it’s quite a contemplative moment for the Bond films.
10. From Russia With Love- I want to get the negatives out of the way in saying I really don’t like the first hour of this movie. Nothing stands out at all and I just find it a drag to sit through. That being said, and with this movie being in my top ten, it’s really a testament to how great the second half is. All the scenes on the train feel like classic old school Bond and it’s a shame nothing like this will probably ever be made in the series again. Very well done and exciting to watch.
11. The Man With The Golden Gun- Like I said earlier, even though he’s not my favorite Bond I can enjoy almost all of the Moore era movies. JW Pepper is one of the strangest decisions ever made for the series IMO and just on that, I can’t help but enjoy how stupid this movie is. I feel like it’s weakness is that it tries to be too much like LALD which is definitely better, but it’s still pretty enjoyable.
12. Octopussy- Is this a hot take to have Octopussy so high? I mean yeah the gorilla, Tarzan and clown scenes are admittedly stupid, is it really anymore stupid than anything else in the series? I don’t know, I think it’s kind of fun seeing Bond in these environments. The plot is decent, the villain is decent, the title is hilarious, I just enjoy this one for whatever reason.
13. The Spy Who Loved Me- While not my favorite Moore movie, it is easily one of the most iconic. Moore is at the top of his game despite an underwhelming main villain. Jaws is great, Bond is fun, and the girls are equally as enjoyable to watch. Definitely a crowd pleaser.
14. Dr. No- Similar to OHMSS, I don’t know how often I would rewatch this movie, but it definitely feels important as you watch it. Even though the franchise would improve beyond this point, it really is impressive how well everything was coordinated even from the start. Connery didn’t need any time to ease into the role and it shows. A really important and enjoyable movie.
15. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service- I’ll be completely honest, this has never been one of my favorites of the series but I do appreciate it for what it is. Great directing and lighting in this movie which I really appreciated, but what holds this one back so much for me is Lazenby’s performance. I know he has his fans, but I really just never see him as Bond, and since it’s a Bond movie, I really never feel the urge to rewatch this movie. I like the idea of a more sensitive Bond, and the closing scene is genuinely emotional, I just personally am not a big fan.
16. The World Is Not Enough- I’m glad people don’t look down on this movie as much anymore because to be honest it’s pretty fun to watch. I’d say the worst thing about it is it feels like one of the sillier Bond plots, but Brosnan is going for a more serious portrayal of the character. Both work on their own, but I think it would work better if they were both kept for other missions. Still, really good action, very entertaining, Brosnan is great, and I don’t care how bad she is in the movie, Denise Richards is hot as fuck.
17. Spectre- If this movie didn’t include all the ridiculous nonsense of Bond and Blofeld being brothers, and Blofeld being connected to all the other Craig movies, and maybe just everything including Blofeld, I could see this sitting comfortably a few spots up on this list. Because taking all that shit out, it’s pretty much a by-the-numbers Bond mission which it seems fans have been clamoring for for awhile now. Don’t hate this movie, Craig is still good, the action is fine, you can watch it. But definitely some terrible decisions in the script process.
18. A View To A Kill- Often regarded as Moore’s worst, sometimes even considered the franchise’s worst, but mostly just a guilty pleasure for me. As a fan of bad movies, I can’t really hate this film. It’s hilarious watching a near sixty James Bond trying to stop Christopher Walken from blowing up Silicon Valley. Just a really strange but fun to laugh at movie.
19. You Only Live Twice- Definitely the moment where the wheels started to come off for Connery, but has some enjoyable elements. Connery is still charming and the adventure is still there for the most part, it just doesn’t really stand out in the franchise.
20. Tomorrow Never Dies- While this isn’t the worst Brosnan Bond film, it is Brosnan’s worst performance as Bond if that makes sense. I think he’s a great Bond otherwise, but he’s probably the worst thing about this movie. He seems bored and like he’s about to fall asleep the whole movie. Only thing that keeps it from being a complete waste is a few standout action scenes especially the remote control car chase. Also Brosnan is legitimately good in his scene with Q.
21. Diamonds Are Forever- My most controversial take on the entire Bond series might be the fact that I don’t see Connery as the ideal Bond or the best to play the character or anything to that effect, but I’ll be the first to admit his run as Bond was definitely one of the most consistent. Unfortunately even for him, he got to the point where it was clear he was just showing up for a paycheck.
22. Moonraker- Most agree that Moore stuck around in the Bond role for far too long, but it’s odd how IMO, Moores worst comes directly in the center of his tenure. Not much else to say, except I was extremely bored throughout the duration of this movie. Moore doesn’t seem to care so why should I. Jaws coming back was ok and I kind of liked the scene on the ski lift or whatever that was, but really all you get from this outing is recycled set pieces from better Bond movies and a shameless rip off of Star Wars for the last 25 minutes. Eh.
23. Quantum Of Solace- It’s kinda weird how this movie brings absolutely nothing to the table, coming directly after one of the biggest breathes of air in the entire franchise. Just feels like the director heard that the Bond franchise was heading in a dark direction and decided to make the dullest action movie of all time. I’m all for experimentation in this series, but it not only doesn’t feel like a Bond film, it doesn’t feel like anything at all. Only reason it’s above DAD is because it didn’t necessarily put me in a bad mood (literally put me in no mood at all) and I think the Bond theme is pretty good. I have this as the worst Craig movie and not Spectre I guess just because even though Spectre has laughably bad writing, at least it has something to laugh at.
24. Die Another Day- Honestly even though I definitely prefer the grittier more modern approach to Bond, I can definitely get into a campy Bond movie and I actually quite enjoy most of the Roger Moore era. Unfortunately for the case of Brosnan’s final outing, this movie really just feels like it’s trying to be something it’s not and it’s pretty depressing. Maybe it’s because I watched it at 8AM but this is one of the only Bond movies that puts me in a bad mood.

If I seem overly critical, just keep in mind I pretty much at least enjoy everything from 19-1. Let me know what you think!

It was already getting dark outside, it was winter.
"That's fucked up!" I laughed at my girlfriend Belle. The trailer for CATS had just dropped on YouTube. We laughed endlessly at the bad uncanny faces and Judi Dench's wristwatch.
"Want to go see it?" Belle asked me.
"Are you serious?" I asked back.
She shrugged. “Sure, why not? Have a good laugh at this mess for a quick buck.” Well, it wasn't what I usually watched but why not?
The movie was to be released on December 20th 2019. We wanted to go as soon as possible. Days passed and I forgot about the whole thing. Then, Belle sent me a link. It was from a small artsy cinema that only showed those oh so deep and thoughtful films like "Jackie" or "Orient Express". No Marvel to be found there. I knew the place next to the rundown train station, just over the bridge and you're there.
The link showed in big red letters "FABULOUS EX SANGUINA EXTRA SCREENING: THE NEW CATS!".
Perfect! Belle and I agreed this would be super funny, though I wondered why I didn't find anything else about some early special showing. I guessed that the owner must have gotten their hand on some pirated version and was probably desperate for money. Nobody I knew ever went there.
So, on December 15th, 2019, I got into the train around 5 pm. I looked forward to spend time with my girl, we would have a fun night, for sure. People were commuting home from work and I looked up early reviews, most of us staring in our phones, maybe we just don’t see the true terrors of life anymore?
This was going to be hilarious, I thought to myself as I watched the trailer again. How had anyone thought to make such a mess of a movie? I mean seriously? Ian McKellen as a cat?
I got off the train, few people around me. The sun was already down but like the last few winters, there was no snow, just freezing wind blowing in my face. I marched downhill to the bridge, over the street and there it was already: the most crappiest old cinema ever.
I had been here once as a child, I think, but never had I thought to go there again. Most people had forgotten about the place already. I remember how I wondered to myself, how it was even possible that it was still open at all? Belle stood at the entrance, uncomfortably chatting with some hipster. I got closer and I realized he was no hipster at all but a homeless guy, maniacally rambling the most insane things, shouting at her getting closer and closer following every time she made a step backwards.
I ran up to them, but he didn't look at me once just kept talking. From far off I couldn't hear what he said but now I did, and I hear his words still in my head, an ignored warning of sorts as I know now.
"Maggie and Gracie there you are there you are! Come, come! Come on, puss, puss, meow, meow!" he screamed at us, throwing yellow spittle all around the grey building. I was scared as hell and just pulled Belle by her arm through the entrance into the cinema.
"Niles, Niles the kids, the kids!" I heard him screech through the glass door. There was a middle-aged couple inside the small ragged lounge all dirty and red, the couple looked scared and scared they looked at us, as numb and non-understanding as I and Belle were.
"Are you okay?" asked the man. "I already told them to call the police." He shook his head in disbelief.
Belle and I took a little while to calm down, just standing there hoping he wouldn’t come in after us.
"Relax folks! He's mostly harmless," said a woman from behind the counter, her voice sounded terrible, utterly inhuman, like nails on blackboard. She didn’t even look at us, just did her nails, filing them, blowing away the pulverized material, filing on.
There was a popcorn machine on the counter, but it wasn't even turned on. The whole place was dirty and filthy, something like vomit was in front of the corner and the sound system, playing some elevator jazz jingle, was unnerving me as it sounded just...off like somebody had recorded a recording and distorted the sound. I went up to the woman who kept on smiling, doing her nails.
"He doesn't seem harmless!" I shouted at her as Belle put an arm on me, trying to soothe me.
"Just relax!" she giggled. Her voice... I just flinched, it was so terrible. She stared at me, her hair a big black curly mass on top of her head. She didn’t even wear work-clothing but some short leopard skirt and a tasteless blue blouse.
"You want some suggestions?" she asked, hands pressed firmly on her hips, the nail file protruding from her hand like a horn.
I stepped backwards, left it to Belle to talk with her. I was so angry. The couple just stared in disbelief, whispering that I was right, at least that was something.
Belle told the woman we were here for the special screening and the woman said, again with the high-pitched glass-shattering voice: "Oh! CAAAAATS! That's great that's the only one we play. Come on step in!"
She gestured down to the right to the, apparently, only screenroom of the whole place. This movie better be funny, else I would call the police on them. She didn't ask for any money or gave us tickets, so we just got in, the couple right behind, followed us.
The disheveled man outside was now sitting on the street staring at us licking his hand and slapping himself with it.
We got inside the cinema hall and the canvas was still all white, all clean and pure. There was nobody checking us in, of course, there were only about six rows of seats and we took our places in the last one, warming up a bit again, giggling, cuddling. I calmed down a bit, I knew I had to ease up, Belle was as grown a woman as I and could take care of herself. Even though, the thought of her getting hurt was the most painful image my brain could produce for me.
"This is so fucked up!" said Belle. The couple, sitting the row before us, turned around and smiled, then laughed at each other.
“Let’s enjoy this train-wreck!” proclaimed the man. It was funny to see adults, true old adults, doing what we did. They seemed happy and had fun together. Maybe one day Belle and I would still do the same? Maybe watch CATS 5 then, already?
The lights went out, then it started. There was no logos no movie production company intros, no trailers. Just a short “starring” but it was gone before I could read the name. This was certainly odd, wasn’t there all kinds of Hollywood-stars in it?
Then the screen went total black. It took so long, I think the man before us was about to get up to call someone in to fix it, when something changed. It was just a man, stepping into the black screen from the side of the frame. He wore a suit and had black hair and seemed very... British.
"Hello ladies and gentlemen! It is my pleasure to introduce you, finally, to my new version of CATS!" then he went off, a bush of silver in his hair, glittering about.
“What the hell was that?” asked Belle rolling her eyes in annoyance.
“It’s art,” I said mockish.
Then the movie finally started, hallelujah!
The first scene showed a dirty room, apparently filmed with a shaky video camera. The floor was all concrete and filled with filth and dried up stains. What they were I don’t know, might be blood I think now. There was a person in the room, small and hidden in the corner, the back turned towards the audience. The person cowered in the corner, hands over his head. This was definitely not what I had expected from CATS.
"Well, that's odd," said the woman before us. Belle and I looked at each other, she raised an eyebrow.
"Weird," I said and shrugged. Head locked back onto the screen.
The person on the screen started to cry and to moan and tried to make itself even smaller, grey and filthy it was like a rat from the cloaca. The face must have been pressed directly on the wall.
"Why do you cry, Jon?" asked a deep booming voice off the screen, it shook me to the heart. The sound effects were really good!
"Why?!" asked the voice again when the person just kept sobbing on about, why then I didn’t know.
"I can't... Please," said the person as it turned around. Just for a split second, it was barely visible, hardly at all, the face looked like it had been melted off, down to the ivory bone, but the cut was so fast it was hardly possible for me to tell.
Cut: a young man with curled brown hair, was sitting in a kitchen and read his newspaper (like literally print) and stroked the dog to his feet who looked lovingly up at him. He put the cup on the table when all started shaking.
For a moment I really even considered it was an earthquake, but a quick glance around made my mistake evident. How crappy the plot was, the effects were really good. The cup fell over and the little dog started to whimper and to crouch at the man’s feet.
"No... No…" the man whispered and put his hands over his head, tears streaming down his face.
“Is that the guy from the other room?” asked Belle.
“Where’s Judi Dench?” I asked.
"Where is it?" whispered the voice from before, now directly into my ear. I jumped up in my seat as I heard it and screamed. Belle and the couple looked at me. The man asked if I also heard it while our partners just stared at us. This was really creepy. Just a creepy movie, right?
"I don't like that," said Belle and squeezed my hand. I put my arm around her and told her) it was nothing, just a movie, just good effects. Boy, I was wrong.
It had appeared on the screen by then. The body of the voice. I couldn't even make out what it was at first, just a shadow of some thing.
Next cut: the young man cowered in the kitchen, similar like in the first scene, his dog barked in panic as the shadow got closer.
Next Cut: The shadow was a second man. He was all naked, but something was wrong, his skin seemed peeled off at some parts, while other parts were just bone. Where some skin was left, it was covered in filthy orange hair, nearly as long as a woman's. His face wasn't visible as he had an orange bag over his head. On the bag though, was drawn in crude manner a cat's head, smiling wide.
"WHERE IS IT?" shouted the voice, raspy and metallic. Belle jumped in her seat, burrowing her face in my shoulders.
“This isn’t the CATS we wanted!” I whispered to her.
“Seems like a fucked-up art film,” she said.
Next cut: The man without skin was whistling and something followed him through the door. It was an armada of cats, all hairless, filling up the floor, hissing like crazy. The flayed man got on a chair, sitting there calmly, one leg over the other. With a long claw-like finger he sliced the skin over his ribcage and brought forth an oldstyle zippo-lighter.
He produced a cigarette from under his nailbed, before he burned a little hole in the bag where his mouth must have been, surely burning his lips but if so he didn’t make sound. Afterwards he lighted the cigarette, the mass of hairless cats all over him and the now shrieking young man and the whimpering little dog crouching all of them turning the normal kitchen into a nightmare Botticelli.
Then the flayed man smoked and smoked on, before he looked directly into the camera. “It is my great pleasure to introduce you, young three blossomed flowers and the rustly old gent here, to the finer revelations of the outside universe,” he said.
The couple looked up to us and then at each other.
“What the fuck!” said Belle.
Then the flayed man continued, the cat-drawing on his bagface staring mindlessly at us. “By design of all this unshaped handmade matter it is nonsense to think it is without goal in its immaculate formation. It is by art and experience of the craftsmen of the highest order a perfectly produced realization of an opinion rarely seen these days,” he said. “My delight is cut short however, if I may articulate the thought in a rudimentary form, that entropy is seen as enemy when in all rightly ways its congress with such fine specimen as you, it is, by all rights and orders known to gods and men, a perfect solution to the unquarreling mess you produced in the current inhibition of your laws,” he said. “In all serendipity this might have produced for the offspring of your kind, I will not allow it to flow so unrighteous on this good earth. May it be havoc or war or pestilence, I can certainly assure my kind has taken a keen interest in goading aforementioned entropy into the right places of this locus. Thus, finally, I assure, you need not worry over cosmic coincidence, as very soon a fate of molded matter is awaiting you,” he said and blew out blue smoke, before he continued. “Yes ladies and gentleman, I said it’s awaiting you.”
We all just looked in shock at another. What the hell was this movie?
“I’m going to get this fixed. I’m not watching this shit!” said the man in the row before us, getting up from his place, when the movie cut again and finally showed the true CATS we have been there to see.
“Finally!” said Belle, clapping her hands, relaxing.
“About time!” shouted the man from the row before us and sat down on his place. For a half minute they showed us all the glory of the uncanny CATS we had wanted to see. Probably the woman from the counter had played us a trick or something.
Then it went downhill.
Next cut: A woman, tied down, young men pouring gasoline over her.
Next cut: WW2 soldiers fighting each other with rocks and sticks.
Next cut: children pocking a maggot-riddled corpse with sticks.
Next cut: A man slicing his skin with a razorblade, his face already a mess of flesh-stripes.
Next cut: Tentacled things twisting and coiling in a dark pit.
Next cut: Close-up of a fly crawling over what must have been shit.
Next cut: an orange cat with a nearly human face, smiling and staring.
Next cut: A man in a white robe choking himself.
Next cut, next cut, next cut, next cut…I don’t know what else there was, but this went on so fast we didn’t even have the time to say something to each other, lest get out of this hellhole of a cinema. Belle had hidden herself in my chest, her hand tightly clinging onto mine.
Next cut: Again, the flayed man, the drawn face of his cat-bag staring at us. The camera zoomed out and heard the most agonizing screams. He was bowing over a woman, doing something to her face, blood and god-knows-what coming out of it as she shook under him, spilling all over even onto the lense of the camera, though I didn’t get a look on what she looked like. “Yes, ladies and gentleman, I said its awaiting you.”
"Please, let's go," said Belle, as she just started to walk out the room, not even waiting for me. I got up too, this got way to freakish I wanted to mock a bad movie not watch some version of "A Serbian Film”, and followed straight after Belle, down the stairs. I took a glimpse at the screen as we walked down towards the door: The flayed man had thrown himself on the whimpering man from before. He wailed in agony as he was burned to a crisp, simply by the touch. Within a second he was just a charred smoking mass of pinkish mud.
The skinless man got up and took the dog who whelped in frantic fear. With a loud slurp he devoured him whole, his mouth a gaping maw with the tongue whirling about anaconda in red it stuck to the dog and rolled it up real tight and then it went all back into the mouth, hidden in the orange bag as the head of the dog was still visible inside of the belly of the flayed man. The muffled barks, pure angst, sounded real.
"Already leaving?" I heard the middle-aged man ask from behind. I turned around and saw their faces. They grinned from ear to ear, but their eyes, meow, their eyes were gone! Just empty black holes staring at us. Belle shrieked behind me and as I turned, there was nothing.
I threw myself at the door, but she wasn’t behind it. Simply gone. The entrance hall was now filled with people.
There was a man in a butler-costume now too behind the counter. He and the woman with the high-pitched voice laughed at me, bursting my ear drums. There were two women next to the door, one of them stuffing herself with food and in the center of it all, suddenly a piano. A man played like a maniac on it. He wore sunglasses though it was dark outside and he followed my every step as I ran through them.
They all laughed as I ran out! Outside the cinema, I called for Belle but got no answer. I looked in panic around me and there he was: The flayed man! I saw his face. It was so... familiar. He got down on all four of his mutilated limbs, like an animal he slowly preyed towards me. I ran across the street, all empty all dark. Up to the train station.
"WHERE IS IT?" I heard behind me, but he was gone.
At the train station there was an old man. I cried and babbled and was a mad mess as he called the police. Nobody has seen Belle. They tell me the old rundown cinema had closed years ago. There was nothing about a missing couple on the news, or about Belle. Where is she. Where is it? WHERE IS IT?

Don Kowalski is the name. I got a message from a Belgian girl, asking for my help. So far I don’t have any evidence, any facts – just her story.
I have dealt with…things, for a long time and let me tell you: some stories are just stories. However, some stories are more, are true, those are usually the ones you wish weren’t true but they are, even though you can't make any sense of them. I’m inclined to let this go, just be done with it, just a poor girl out of her mind.
If any of you know about this stuff or have seen an odd version with the same name as the mentioned film, this atrocious animation massacre called “CATS”, please let me know. So, here’s the girl’s story.
Dear Mr. Kowalski, I don't know if you remember me, but we met back in 2016 when I was an au pair for your friend Sara. You came by once - all drunk - and broke the mirror in her bathroom. We didn't really talk as Sara was fast to kick you out, but she told me you were into all weird... stuff and that you had been with the police some years ago.
I'm writing you because nobody will believe me what happened. We watched this movie but it was not like we expected. I live in Tournai, Belgium. I live there with my girlfriend Belle. My girlfriend is gone, and I don't know what to do. Nobody will believe me they just say she ditched town, but I don't, I can't accept that. Please help me. Please.
Hey, I got your message. I don't really know what I should tell you kid? Your text is hardly understandable. I know some guys on the internet near your location might be of help. If you can pull yourself together a bit and tell me what happened, they could maybe try to help you.
Best of luck and stay strong. Don.
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Dear Mr. Kowalski, thanks for your reply, I guess. I wrote it up better. Please help or your friends help. Please, meow.
#####################################################################
It was already getting dark outside, it was winter.
"That's fucked up!" I laughed at my girlfriend Belle. The trailer for CATS had just dropped on YouTube. I bet you horror-hungry guys have seen it too. We laughed endlessly at the bad uncanny faces and Judi Dench's wristwatch.
"Want to go see it?" Belle asked me.
"Are you serious?" I asked back.
She shrugged. “Sure, why not? Have a good laugh at this mess for a quick buck.” Well, it wasn't what I usually watched but why not?
The movie was to be released on December 20th 2019. We wanted to go as soon as possible. Days passed and I forgot about the whole thing. Then, Belle sent me a link. It was from a small artsy cinema that only showed those oh so deep and thoughtful films like "Jackie" or "Orient Express". No Marvel to be found there. I knew the place next to the rundown train station, just over the bridge and you're there.
The link showed in big red letters "FABULOUS EX SANGUINA EXTRA SCREENING: THE NEW CATS!".
Perfect! Belle and I agreed this would be super funny, though I wondered why I didn't find anything else about some early special showing. I guessed that the owner must have gotten their hand on some pirated version and was probably desperate for money. Nobody I knew ever went there.
So, on December 15th, 2019, I got into the train around 5 pm. I looked forward to spend time with my girl, we would have a fun night, for sure. People were commuting home from work and I looked up early reviews, most of us staring in our phones, maybe we just don’t see the true terrors of life anymore?
This was going to be hilarious, I thought to myself as I watched the trailer again. How had anyone thought to make such a mess of a movie? I mean seriously? Ian McKellen as a cat?
I got off the train, few people around me. The sun was already down but like the last few winters, there was no snow, just freezing wind blowing in my face. I marched downhill to the bridge, over the street and there it was already: the most crappiest old cinema ever.
I had been here once as a child, I think, but never had I thought to go there again. Most people had forgotten about the place already. I remember how I wondered to myself, how it was even possible that it was still open at all? Belle stood at the entrance, uncomfortably chatting with some hipster. I got closer and I realized he was no hipster at all but a homeless guy, maniacally rambling the most insane things, shouting at her getting closer and closer following every time she made a step backwards.
I ran up to them, but he didn't look at me once just kept talking. From far off I couldn't hear what he said but now I did, and I hear his words still in my head, an ignored warning of sorts as I know now.
"Maggie and Gracie there you are there you are! Come, come! Come on, puss, puss, meow, meow!" he screamed at us, throwing yellow spittle all around the grey building. I was scared as hell and just pulled Belle by her arm through the entrance into the cinema.
"Niles, Niles the kids, the kids!" I heard him screech through the glass door. There was a middle-aged couple inside the small ragged lounge all dirty and red, the couple looked scared and scared they looked at us, as numb and non-understanding as I and Belle were.
"Are you okay?" asked the man. "I already told them to call the police." He shook his head in disbelief.
Belle and I took a little while to calm down, just standing there hoping he wouldn’t come in after us.
"Relax folks! He's mostly harmless," said a woman from behind the counter, her voice sounded terrible, utterly inhuman, like nails on blackboard. She didn’t even look at us, just did her nails, filing them, blowing away the pulverized material, filing on.
There was a popcorn machine on the counter, but it wasn't even turned on. The whole place was dirty and filthy, something like vomit was in front of the corner and the sound system, playing some elevator jazz jingle, was unnerving me as it sounded just...off like somebody had recorded a recording and distorted the sound. I went up to the woman who kept on smiling, doing her nails.
"He doesn't seem harmless!" I shouted at her as Belle put an arm on me, trying to soothe me.
"Just relax!" she giggled. Her voice... I just flinched, it was so terrible. She stared at me, her hair a big black curly mass on top of her head. She didn’t even wear work-clothing but some short leopard skirt and a tasteless blue blouse.
"You want some suggestions?" she asked, hands pressed firmly on her hips, the nail file protruding from her hand like a horn.
I stepped backwards, left it to Belle to talk with her. I was so angry. The couple just stared in disbelief, whispering that I was right, at least that was something.
Belle told the woman we were here for the special screening and the woman said, again with the high-pitched glass-shattering voice: "Oh! CAAAAATS! That's great that's the only one we play. Come on step in!"
She gestured down to the right to the, apparently, only screenroom of the whole place. This movie better be funny, else I would call the police on them. She didn't ask for any money or gave us tickets, so we just got in, the couple right behind, followed us.
The disheveled man outside was now sitting on the street staring at us licking his hand and slapping himself with it.
We got inside the cinema hall and the canvas was still all white, all clean and pure. There was nobody checking us in, of course, there were only about six rows of seats and we took our places in the last one, warming up a bit again, giggling, cuddling. I calmed down a bit, I knew I had to ease up, Belle was as grown a woman as I and could take care of herself. Even though, the thought of her getting hurt was the most painful image my brain could produce for me.
"This is so fucked up!" said Belle. The couple, sitting the row before us, turned around and smiled, then laughed at each other.
“Let’s enjoy this train-wreck!” proclaimed the man. It was funny to see adults, true old adults, doing what we did. They seemed happy and had fun together. Maybe one day Belle and I would still do the same? Maybe watch CATS 5 then, already?
The lights went out, then it started. There was no logos no movie production company intros, no trailers. Just a short “starring” but it was gone before I could read the name. This was certainly odd, wasn’t there all kinds of Hollywood-stars in it?
Then the screen went total black. It took so long, I think the man before us was about to get up to call someone in to fix it, when something changed. It was just a man, stepping into the black screen from the side of the frame. He wore a suit and had black hair and seemed very... British.
"Hello ladies and gentlemen! It is my pleasure to introduce you, finally, to my new version of CATS!" then he went off, a bush of silver in his hair, glittering about.
“What the hell was that?” asked Belle rolling her eyes in annoyance.
“It’s art,” I said mockish.
Then the movie finally started, hallelujah!
The first scene showed a dirty room, apparently filmed with a shaky video camera. The floor was all concrete and filled with filth and dried up stains. What they were I don’t know, might be blood I think now. There was a person in the room, small and hidden in the corner, the back turned towards the audience. The person cowered in the corner, hands over his head. This was definitely not what I had expected from CATS.
"Well, that's odd," said the woman before us. Belle and I looked at each other, she raised an eyebrow.
"Weird," I said and shrugged. Head locked back onto the screen.
The person on the screen started to cry and to moan and tried to make itself even smaller, grey and filthy it was like a rat from the cloaca. The face must have been pressed directly on the wall.
"Why do you cry, Jon?" asked a deep booming voice off the screen, it shook me to the heart. The sound effects were really good!
"Why?!" asked the voice again when the person just kept sobbing on about, why then I didn’t know.
"I can't... Please," said the person as it turned around. Just for a split second, it was barely visible, hardly at all, the face looked like it had been melted off, down to the ivory bone, but the cut was so fast it was hardly possible for me to tell.
Cut: a young man with curled brown hair, was sitting in a kitchen and read his newspaper (like literally print) and stroked the dog to his feet who looked lovingly up at him. He put the cup on the table when all started shaking.
For a moment I really even considered it was an earthquake, but a quick glance around made my mistake evident. How crappy the plot was, the effects were really good. The cup fell over and the little dog started to whimper and to crouch at the man’s feet.
"No... No…" the man whispered and put his hands over his head, tears streaming down his face.
“Is that the guy from the other room?” asked Belle.
“Where’s Judi Dench?” I asked.
"Where is it?" whispered the voice from before, now directly into my ear. I jumped up in my seat as I heard it and screamed. Belle and the couple looked at me. The man asked if I also heard it while our partners just stared at us. This was really creepy. Just a creepy movie, right?
"I don't like that," said Belle and squeezed my hand. I put my arm around her and told her) it was nothing, just a movie, just good effects. Boy, I was wrong.
It had appeared on the screen by then. The body of the voice. I couldn't even make out what it was at first, just a shadow of some thing.
Next cut: the young man cowered in the kitchen, similar like in the first scene, his dog barked in panic as the shadow got closer.
Next Cut: The shadow was a second man. He was all naked, but something was wrong, his skin seemed peeled off at some parts, while other parts were just bone. Where some skin was left, it was covered in filthy orange hair, nearly as long as a woman's. His face wasn't visible as he had an orange bag over his head. On the bag though, was drawn in crude manner a cat's head, smiling wide.
"WHERE IS IT?" shouted the voice, raspy and metallic. Belle jumped in her seat, burrowing her face in my shoulders.
“This isn’t the CATS we wanted!” I whispered to her.
“Seems like a fucked-up art film,” she said.
Next cut: The man without skin was whistling and something followed him through the door. It was an armada of cats, all hairless, filling up the floor, hissing like crazy. The flayed man got on a chair, sitting there calmly, one leg over the other. With a long claw-like finger he sliced the skin over his ribcage and brought forth an oldstyle zippo-lighter.
He produced a cigarette from under his nailbed, before he burned a little hole in the bag where his mouth must have been, surely burning his lips but if so he didn’t make sound. Afterwards he lighted the cigarette, the mass of hairless cats all over him and the now shrieking young man and the whimpering little dog crouching all of them turning the normal kitchen into a nightmare Botticelli.
Then the flayed man smoked and smoked on, before he looked directly into the camera. “It is my great pleasure to introduce you, young three blossomed flowers and the rustly old gent here, to the finer revelations of the outside universe,” he said.
The couple looked up to us and then at each other.
“What the fuck!” said Belle.
Then the flayed man continued, the cat-drawing on his bagface staring mindlessly at us. “By design of all this unshaped handmade matter it is nonsense to think it is without goal in its immaculate formation. It is by art and experience of the craftsmen of the highest order a perfectly produced realization of an opinion rarely seen these days,” he said. “My delight is cut short however, if I may articulate the thought in a rudimentary form, that entropy is seen as enemy when in all rightly ways its congress with such fine specimen as you, it is, by all rights and orders known to gods and men, a perfect solution to the unquarreling mess you produced in the current inhibition of your laws,” he said. “In all serendipity this might have produced for the offspring of your kind, I will not allow it to flow so unrighteous on this good earth. May it be havoc or war or pestilence, I can certainly assure my kind has taken a keen interest in goading aforementioned entropy into the right places of this locus. Thus, finally, I assure, you need not worry over cosmic coincidence, as very soon a fate of molded matter is awaiting you,” he said and blew out blue smoke, before he continued. “Yes ladies and gentleman, I said it’s awaiting you.”
We all just looked in shock at another. What the hell was this movie?
“I’m going to get this fixed. I’m not watching this shit!” said the man in the row before us, getting up from his place, when the movie cut again and finally showed the true CATS we have been there to see.
“Finally!” said Belle, clapping her hands, relaxing.
“About time!” shouted the man from the row before us and sat down on his place. For a half minute they showed us all the glory of the uncanny CATS we had wanted to see. Probably the woman from the counter had played us a trick or something.
Then it went downhill.
Next cut: A woman, tied down, young men pouring gasoline over her.
Next cut: WW2 soldiers fighting each other with rocks and sticks.
Next cut: children pocking a maggot-riddled corpse with sticks.
Next cut: A man slicing his skin with a razorblade, his face already a mess of flesh-stripes.
Next cut: Tentacled things twisting and coiling in a dark pit.
Next cut: Close-up of a fly crawling over what must have been shit.
Next cut: an orange cat with a nearly human face, smiling and staring.
Next cut: A man in a white robe choking himself.
Next cut, next cut, next cut, next cut…I don’t know what else there was, but this went on so fast we didn’t even have the time to say something to each other, lest get out of this hellhole of a cinema. Belle had hidden herself in my chest, her hand tightly clinging onto mine.
Next cut: Again, the flayed man, the drawn face of his cat-bag staring at us. The camera zoomed out and heard the most agonizing screams. He was bowing over a woman, doing something to her face, blood and god-knows-what coming out of it as she shook under him, spilling all over even onto the lense of the camera, though I didn’t get a look on what she looked like. “Yes, ladies and gentleman, I said its awaiting you.”
"Please, let's go," said Belle, as she just started to walk out the room, not even waiting for me. I got up too, this got way to freakish I wanted to mock a bad movie not watch some version of "A Serbian Film”, and followed straight after Belle, down the stairs. I took a glimpse at the screen as we walked down towards the door: The flayed man had thrown himself on the whimpering man from before. He wailed in agony as he was burned to a crisp, simply by the touch. Within a second he was just a charred smoking mass of pinkish mud.
The skinless man got up and took the dog who whelped in frantic fear. With a loud slurp he devoured him whole, his mouth a gaping maw with the tongue whirling about anaconda in red it stuck to the dog and rolled it up real tight and then it went all back into the mouth, hidden in the orange bag as the head of the dog was still visible inside of the belly of the flayed man. The muffled barks, pure angst, sounded real.
"Already leaving?" I heard the middle-aged man ask from behind. I turned around and saw their faces. They grinned from ear to ear, but their eyes, meow, their eyes were gone! Just empty black holes staring at us. Belle shrieked behind me and as I turned, there was nothing.
I threw myself at the door, but she wasn’t behind it. Simply gone. The entrance hall was now filled with people.
There was a man in a butler-costume now too behind the counter. He and the woman with the high-pitched voice laughed at me, bursting my ear drums. There were two women next to the door, one of them stuffing herself with food and in the center of it all, suddenly a piano. A man played like a maniac on it. He wore sunglasses though it was dark outside and he followed my every step as I ran through them.
They all laughed as I ran out! Outside the cinema, I called for Belle but got no answer. I looked in panic around me and there he was: The flayed man! I saw his face. It was so... familiar. He got down on all four of his mutilated limbs, like an animal he slowly preyed towards me. I ran across the street, all empty all dark. Up to the train station.
"WHERE IS IT?" I heard behind me, but he was gone.
At the train station there was an old man. I cried and babbled and was a mad mess as he called the police. Nobody has seen Belle. They tell me the old rundown cinema had closed years ago. There was nothing about a missing couple on the news, or about Belle. Where is she. Where is it? WHERE IS IT?
I forwarded the message to my friend Jacques down in France, living not far from the Belgian border. He got back to me yesterday.
Hey Don, spooky stuff. I went up there but there's nothing. The place is closed, and all boarded up. What's really creepy though was them damn cats. Must have taken up there. Meowing all over the place. Honestly, didn't dare to get in, bad vibes were too big. I asked at townhall and they said place was abandoned, didn’t even know the name of the current owner. Best stay away from that shit. Jacques.
That's all I know, for now. I know most of you love horror films and that's all fine enough but stay away from Hollywood, dark stars are out there watching you, waiting, preying.
Yours truly,
Don Kowalski

Don Kowalski is the name. I got a message from a Belgian girl, asking for my help. So far I don’t have any evidence, any facts – just her story.
I have dealt with…things, for a long time and let me tell you: some stories are just stories. However, some stories are more, are true, those are usually the ones you wish weren’t true but they are, even though you can't make any sense of them. I’m inclined to let this go, just be done with it, just a poor girl out of her mind.
If any of you know about this stuff or have seen an odd version with the same name as the mentioned film, this atrocious animation massacre called “CATS”, please let me know. So, here’s the girl’s story.
Dear Mr. Kowalski, I don't know if you remember me, but we met back in 2016 when I was an au pair for your friend Sara. You came by once - all drunk - and broke the mirror in her bathroom. We didn't really talk as Sara was fast to kick you out, but she told me you were into all weird... stuff and that you had been with the police some years ago.
I'm writing you because nobody will believe me what happened. We watched this movie but it was not like we expected. I live in Tournai, Belgium. I live there with my girlfriend Belle. My girlfriend is gone, and I don't know what to do. Nobody will believe me they just say she ditched town, but I don't, I can't accept that. Please help me. Please.
Hey, I got your message. I don't really know what I should tell you kid? Your text is hardly understandable. I know some guys on the internet near your location might be of help. If you can pull yourself together a bit and tell me what happened, they could maybe try to help you.
Best of luck and stay strong. Don.
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Dear Mr. Kowalski, thanks for your reply, I guess. I wrote it up better. Please help or your friends help. Please, meow.
#####################################################################
It was already getting dark outside, it was winter.
"That's fucked up!" I laughed at my girlfriend Belle. The trailer for CATS had just dropped on YouTube. I bet you horror-hungry guys have seen it too. We laughed endlessly at the bad uncanny faces and Judi Dench's wristwatch.
"Want to go see it?" Belle asked me.
"Are you serious?" I asked back.
She shrugged. “Sure, why not? Have a good laugh at this mess for a quick buck.” Well, it wasn't what I usually watched but why not?
The movie was to be released on December 20th 2019. We wanted to go as soon as possible. Days passed and I forgot about the whole thing. Then, Belle sent me a link. It was from a small artsy cinema that only showed those oh so deep and thoughtful films like "Jackie" or "Orient Express". No Marvel to be found there. I knew the place next to the rundown train station, just over the bridge and you're there.
The link showed in big red letters "FABULOUS EX SANGUINA EXTRA SCREENING: THE NEW CATS!".
Perfect! Belle and I agreed this would be super funny, though I wondered why I didn't find anything else about some early special showing. I guessed that the owner must have gotten their hand on some pirated version and was probably desperate for money. Nobody I knew ever went there.
So, on December 15th, 2019, I got into the train around 5 pm. I looked forward to spend time with my girl, we would have a fun night, for sure. People were commuting home from work and I looked up early reviews, most of us staring in our phones, maybe we just don’t see the true terrors of life anymore?
This was going to be hilarious, I thought to myself as I watched the trailer again. How had anyone thought to make such a mess of a movie? I mean seriously? Ian McKellen as a cat?
I got off the train, few people around me. The sun was already down but like the last few winters, there was no snow, just freezing wind blowing in my face. I marched downhill to the bridge, over the street and there it was already: the most crappiest old cinema ever.
I had been here once as a child, I think, but never had I thought to go there again. Most people had forgotten about the place already. I remember how I wondered to myself, how it was even possible that it was still open at all? Belle stood at the entrance, uncomfortably chatting with some hipster. I got closer and I realized he was no hipster at all but a homeless guy, maniacally rambling the most insane things, shouting at her getting closer and closer following every time she made a step backwards.
I ran up to them, but he didn't look at me once just kept talking. From far off I couldn't hear what he said but now I did, and I hear his words still in my head, an ignored warning of sorts as I know now.
"Maggie and Gracie there you are there you are! Come, come! Come on, puss, puss, meow, meow!" he screamed at us, throwing yellow spittle all around the grey building. I was scared as hell and just pulled Belle by her arm through the entrance into the cinema.
"Niles, Niles the kids, the kids!" I heard him screech through the glass door. There was a middle-aged couple inside the small ragged lounge all dirty and red, the couple looked scared and scared they looked at us, as numb and non-understanding as I and Belle were.
"Are you okay?" asked the man. "I already told them to call the police." He shook his head in disbelief.
Belle and I took a little while to calm down, just standing there hoping he wouldn’t come in after us.
"Relax folks! He's mostly harmless," said a woman from behind the counter, her voice sounded terrible, utterly inhuman, like nails on blackboard. She didn’t even look at us, just did her nails, filing them, blowing away the pulverized material, filing on.
There was a popcorn machine on the counter, but it wasn't even turned on. The whole place was dirty and filthy, something like vomit was in front of the corner and the sound system, playing some elevator jazz jingle, was unnerving me as it sounded just...off like somebody had recorded a recording and distorted the sound. I went up to the woman who kept on smiling, doing her nails.
"He doesn't seem harmless!" I shouted at her as Belle put an arm on me, trying to soothe me.
"Just relax!" she giggled. Her voice... I just flinched, it was so terrible. She stared at me, her hair a big black curly mass on top of her head. She didn’t even wear work-clothing but some short leopard skirt and a tasteless blue blouse.
"You want some suggestions?" she asked, hands pressed firmly on her hips, the nail file protruding from her hand like a horn.
I stepped backwards, left it to Belle to talk with her. I was so angry. The couple just stared in disbelief, whispering that I was right, at least that was something.
Belle told the woman we were here for the special screening and the woman said, again with the high-pitched glass-shattering voice: "Oh! CAAAAATS! That's great that's the only one we play. Come on step in!"
She gestured down to the right to the, apparently, only screenroom of the whole place. This movie better be funny, else I would call the police on them. She didn't ask for any money or gave us tickets, so we just got in, the couple right behind, followed us.
The disheveled man outside was now sitting on the street staring at us licking his hand and slapping himself with it.
We got inside the cinema hall and the canvas was still all white, all clean and pure. There was nobody checking us in, of course, there were only about six rows of seats and we took our places in the last one, warming up a bit again, giggling, cuddling. I calmed down a bit, I knew I had to ease up, Belle was as grown a woman as I and could take care of herself. Even though, the thought of her getting hurt was the most painful image my brain could produce for me.
"This is so fucked up!" said Belle. The couple, sitting the row before us, turned around and smiled, then laughed at each other.
“Let’s enjoy this train-wreck!” proclaimed the man. It was funny to see adults, true old adults, doing what we did. They seemed happy and had fun together. Maybe one day Belle and I would still do the same? Maybe watch CATS 5 then, already?
The lights went out, then it started. There was no logos no movie production company intros, no trailers. Just a short “starring” but it was gone before I could read the name. This was certainly odd, wasn’t there all kinds of Hollywood-stars in it?
Then the screen went total black. It took so long, I think the man before us was about to get up to call someone in to fix it, when something changed. It was just a man, stepping into the black screen from the side of the frame. He wore a suit and had black hair and seemed very... British.
"Hello ladies and gentlemen! It is my pleasure to introduce you, finally, to my new version of CATS!" then he went off, a bush of silver in his hair, glittering about.
“What the hell was that?” asked Belle rolling her eyes in annoyance.
“It’s art,” I said mockish.
Then the movie finally started, hallelujah!
The first scene showed a dirty room, apparently filmed with a shaky video camera. The floor was all concrete and filled with filth and dried up stains. What they were I don’t know, might be blood I think now. There was a person in the room, small and hidden in the corner, the back turned towards the audience. The person cowered in the corner, hands over his head. This was definitely not what I had expected from CATS.
"Well, that's odd," said the woman before us. Belle and I looked at each other, she raised an eyebrow.
"Weird," I said and shrugged. Head locked back onto the screen.
The person on the screen started to cry and to moan and tried to make itself even smaller, grey and filthy it was like a rat from the cloaca. The face must have been pressed directly on the wall.
"Why do you cry, Jon?" asked a deep booming voice off the screen, it shook me to the heart. The sound effects were really good!
"Why?!" asked the voice again when the person just kept sobbing on about, why then I didn’t know.
"I can't... Please," said the person as it turned around. Just for a split second, it was barely visible, hardly at all, the face looked like it had been melted off, down to the ivory bone, but the cut was so fast it was hardly possible for me to tell.
Cut: a young man with curled brown hair, was sitting in a kitchen and read his newspaper (like literally print) and stroked the dog to his feet who looked lovingly up at him. He put the cup on the table when all started shaking.
For a moment I really even considered it was an earthquake, but a quick glance around made my mistake evident. How crappy the plot was, the effects were really good. The cup fell over and the little dog started to whimper and to crouch at the man’s feet.
"No... No…" the man whispered and put his hands over his head, tears streaming down his face.
“Is that the guy from the other room?” asked Belle.
“Where’s Judi Dench?” I asked.
"Where is it?" whispered the voice from before, now directly into my ear. I jumped up in my seat as I heard it and screamed. Belle and the couple looked at me. The man asked if I also heard it while our partners just stared at us. This was really creepy. Just a creepy movie, right?
"I don't like that," said Belle and squeezed my hand. I put my arm around her and told her) it was nothing, just a movie, just good effects. Boy, I was wrong.
It had appeared on the screen by then. The body of the voice. I couldn't even make out what it was at first, just a shadow of some thing.
Next cut: the young man cowered in the kitchen, similar like in the first scene, his dog barked in panic as the shadow got closer.
Next Cut: The shadow was a second man. He was all naked, but something was wrong, his skin seemed peeled off at some parts, while other parts were just bone. Where some skin was left, it was covered in filthy orange hair, nearly as long as a woman's. His face wasn't visible as he had an orange bag over his head. On the bag though, was drawn in crude manner a cat's head, smiling wide.
"WHERE IS IT?" shouted the voice, raspy and metallic. Belle jumped in her seat, burrowing her face in my shoulders.
“This isn’t the CATS we wanted!” I whispered to her.
“Seems like a fucked-up art film,” she said.
Next cut: The man without skin was whistling and something followed him through the door. It was an armada of cats, all hairless, filling up the floor, hissing like crazy. The flayed man got on a chair, sitting there calmly, one leg over the other. With a long claw-like finger he sliced the skin over his ribcage and brought forth an oldstyle zippo-lighter.
He produced a cigarette from under his nailbed, before he burned a little hole in the bag where his mouth must have been, surely burning his lips but if so he didn’t make sound. Afterwards he lighted the cigarette, the mass of hairless cats all over him and the now shrieking young man and the whimpering little dog crouching all of them turning the normal kitchen into a nightmare Botticelli.
Then the flayed man smoked and smoked on, before he looked directly into the camera. “It is my great pleasure to introduce you, young three blossomed flowers and the rustly old gent here, to the finer revelations of the outside universe,” he said.
The couple looked up to us and then at each other.
“What the fuck!” said Belle.
Then the flayed man continued, the cat-drawing on his bagface staring mindlessly at us. “By design of all this unshaped handmade matter it is nonsense to think it is without goal in its immaculate formation. It is by art and experience of the craftsmen of the highest order a perfectly produced realization of an opinion rarely seen these days,” he said. “My delight is cut short however, if I may articulate the thought in a rudimentary form, that entropy is seen as enemy when in all rightly ways its congress with such fine specimen as you, it is, by all rights and orders known to gods and men, a perfect solution to the unquarreling mess you produced in the current inhibition of your laws,” he said. “In all serendipity this might have produced for the offspring of your kind, I will not allow it to flow so unrighteous on this good earth. May it be havoc or war or pestilence, I can certainly assure my kind has taken a keen interest in goading aforementioned entropy into the right places of this locus. Thus, finally, I assure, you need not worry over cosmic coincidence, as very soon a fate of molded matter is awaiting you,” he said and blew out blue smoke, before he continued. “Yes ladies and gentleman, I said it’s awaiting you.”
We all just looked in shock at another. What the hell was this movie?
“I’m going to get this fixed. I’m not watching this shit!” said the man in the row before us, getting up from his place, when the movie cut again and finally showed the true CATS we have been there to see.
“Finally!” said Belle, clapping her hands, relaxing.
“About time!” shouted the man from the row before us and sat down on his place. For a half minute they showed us all the glory of the uncanny CATS we had wanted to see. Probably the woman from the counter had played us a trick or something.
Then it went downhill.
Next cut: A woman, tied down, young men pouring gasoline over her.
Next cut: WW2 soldiers fighting each other with rocks and sticks.
Next cut: children pocking a maggot-riddled corpse with sticks.
Next cut: A man slicing his skin with a razorblade, his face already a mess of flesh-stripes.
Next cut: Tentacled things twisting and coiling in a dark pit.
Next cut: Close-up of a fly crawling over what must have been shit.
Next cut: an orange cat with a nearly human face, smiling and staring.
Next cut: A man in a white robe choking himself.
Next cut, next cut, next cut, next cut…I don’t know what else there was, but this went on so fast we didn’t even have the time to say something to each other, lest get out of this hellhole of a cinema. Belle had hidden herself in my chest, her hand tightly clinging onto mine.
Next cut: Again, the flayed man, the drawn face of his cat-bag staring at us. The camera zoomed out and heard the most agonizing screams. He was bowing over a woman, doing something to her face, blood and god-knows-what coming out of it as she shook under him, spilling all over even onto the lense of the camera, though I didn’t get a look on what she looked like. “Yes, ladies and gentleman, I said its awaiting you.”
"Please, let's go," said Belle, as she just started to walk out the room, not even waiting for me. I got up too, this got way to freakish I wanted to mock a bad movie not watch some version of "A Serbian Film”, and followed straight after Belle, down the stairs. I took a glimpse at the screen as we walked down towards the door: The flayed man had thrown himself on the whimpering man from before. He wailed in agony as he was burned to a crisp, simply by the touch. Within a second he was just a charred smoking mass of pinkish mud.
The skinless man got up and took the dog who whelped in frantic fear. With a loud slurp he devoured him whole, his mouth a gaping maw with the tongue whirling about anaconda in red it stuck to the dog and rolled it up real tight and then it went all back into the mouth, hidden in the orange bag as the head of the dog was still visible inside of the belly of the flayed man. The muffled barks, pure angst, sounded real.
"Already leaving?" I heard the middle-aged man ask from behind. I turned around and saw their faces. They grinned from ear to ear, but their eyes, meow, their eyes were gone! Just empty black holes staring at us. Belle shrieked behind me and as I turned, there was nothing.
I threw myself at the door, but she wasn’t behind it. Simply gone. The entrance hall was now filled with people.
There was a man in a butler-costume now too behind the counter. He and the woman with the high-pitched voice laughed at me, bursting my ear drums. There were two women next to the door, one of them stuffing herself with food and in the center of it all, suddenly a piano. A man played like a maniac on it. He wore sunglasses though it was dark outside and he followed my every step as I ran through them.
They all laughed as I ran out! Outside the cinema, I called for Belle but got no answer. I looked in panic around me and there he was: The flayed man! I saw his face. It was so... familiar. He got down on all four of his mutilated limbs, like an animal he slowly preyed towards me. I ran across the street, all empty all dark. Up to the train station.
"WHERE IS IT?" I heard behind me, but he was gone.
At the train station there was an old man. I cried and babbled and was a mad mess as he called the police. Nobody has seen Belle. They tell me the old rundown cinema had closed years ago. There was nothing about a missing couple on the news, or about Belle. Where is she. Where is it?
I forwarded the message to my friend Jacques down in France, living not far from the Belgian border. He got back to me yesterday.
Hey Don, spooky stuff. I went up there but there's nothing. The place is closed, and all boarded up. What's really creepy though was them damn cats. Must have taken up there. Meowing all over the place. Honestly, didn't dare to get in, bad vibes were too big. I asked at townhall and they said place was abandoned, didn’t even know the name of the current owner. Best stay away from that shit. Jacques.
That's all I know, for now. I know most of you love horror films and that's all fine enough but stay away from Hollywood, dark stars are out there watching you, waiting, preying.
Yours truly,
Don Kowalski

Don Kowalski is the name. I got a message from a Belgian girl, asking for my help. So far I don’t have any evidence, any facts – just her story.
I have dealt with…things, for a long time and let me tell you: some stories are just stories. However, some stories are more, are true, those are usually the ones you wish weren’t true but they are, even though you can't make any sense of them. I’m inclined to let this go, just be done with it, just a poor girl out of her mind.
If any of you know about this stuff or have seen an odd version with the same name as the mentioned film, this atrocious animation massacre called “CATS”, please let me know. So, here’s the girl’s story.
Dear Mr. Kowalski, I don't know if you remember me, but we met back in 2016 when I was an au pair for your friend Sara. You came by once - all drunk - and broke the mirror in her bathroom. We didn't really talk as Sara was fast to kick you out, but she told me you were into all weird... stuff and that you had been with the police some years ago.
I'm writing you because nobody will believe me what happened. We watched this movie but it was not like we expected. I live in Tournai, Belgium. I live there with my girlfriend Belle. My girlfriend is gone, and I don't know what to do. Nobody will believe me they just say she ditched town, but I don't, I can't accept that. Please help me. Please.
Hey, I got your message. I don't really know what I should tell you kid? Your text is hardly understandable. I know some guys on the internet near your location might be of help. If you can pull yourself together a bit and tell me what happened, they could maybe try to help you.
Best of luck and stay strong. Don.
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Dear Mr. Kowalski, thanks for your reply, I guess. I wrote it up better. Please help or your friends help. Please, meow.
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It was already getting dark outside, it was winter.
"That's fucked up!" I laughed at my girlfriend Belle. The trailer for CATS had just dropped on YouTube. I bet you horror-hungry guys have seen it too. We laughed endlessly at the bad uncanny faces and Judi Dench's wristwatch.
"Want to go see it?" Belle asked me.
"Are you serious?" I asked back.
She shrugged. “Sure, why not? Have a good laugh at this mess for a quick buck.” Well, it wasn't what I usually watched but why not?
The movie was to be released on December 20th 2019. We wanted to go as soon as possible. Days passed and I forgot about the whole thing. Then, Belle sent me a link. It was from a small artsy cinema that only showed those oh so deep and thoughtful films like "Jackie" or "Orient Express". No Marvel to be found there. I knew the place next to the rundown train station, just over the bridge and you're there.
The link showed in big red letters "FABULOUS EX SANGUINA EXTRA SCREENING: THE NEW CATS!".
Perfect! Belle and I agreed this would be super funny, though I wondered why I didn't find anything else about some early special showing. I guessed that the owner must have gotten their hand on some pirated version and was probably desperate for money. Nobody I knew ever went there.
So, on December 15th, 2019, I got into the train around 5 pm. I looked forward to spend time with my girl, we would have a fun night, for sure. People were commuting home from work and I looked up early reviews, most of us staring in our phones, maybe we just don’t see the true terrors of life anymore?
This was going to be hilarious, I thought to myself as I watched the trailer again. How had anyone thought to make such a mess of a movie? I mean seriously? Ian McKellen as a cat?
I got off the train, few people around me. The sun was already down but like the last few winters, there was no snow, just freezing wind blowing in my face. I marched downhill to the bridge, over the street and there it was already: the most crappiest old cinema ever.
I had been here once as a child, I think, but never had I thought to go there again. Most people had forgotten about the place already. I remember how I wondered to myself, how it was even possible that it was still open at all? Belle stood at the entrance, uncomfortably chatting with some hipster. I got closer and I realized he was no hipster at all but a homeless guy, maniacally rambling the most insane things, shouting at her getting closer and closer following every time she made a step backwards.
I ran up to them, but he didn't look at me once just kept talking. From far off I couldn't hear what he said but now I did, and I hear his words still in my head, an ignored warning of sorts as I know now.
"Maggie and Gracie there you are there you are! Come, come! Come on, puss, puss, meow, meow!" he screamed at us, throwing yellow spittle all around the grey building. I was scared as hell and just pulled Belle by her arm through the entrance into the cinema.
"Niles, Niles the kids, the kids!" I heard him screech through the glass door. There was a middle-aged couple inside the small ragged lounge all dirty and red, the couple looked scared and scared they looked at us, as numb and non-understanding as I and Belle were.
"Are you okay?" asked the man. "I already told them to call the police." He shook his head in disbelief.
Belle and I took a little while to calm down, just standing there hoping he wouldn’t come in after us.
"Relax folks! He's mostly harmless," said a woman from behind the counter, her voice sounded terrible, utterly inhuman, like nails on blackboard. She didn’t even look at us, just did her nails, filing them, blowing away the pulverized material, filing on.
There was a popcorn machine on the counter, but it wasn't even turned on. The whole place was dirty and filthy, something like vomit was in front of the corner and the sound system, playing some elevator jazz jingle, was unnerving me as it sounded just...off like somebody had recorded a recording and distorted the sound. I went up to the woman who kept on smiling, doing her nails.
"He doesn't seem harmless!" I shouted at her as Belle put an arm on me, trying to soothe me.
"Just relax!" she giggled. Her voice... I just flinched, it was so terrible. She stared at me, her hair a big black curly mass on top of her head. She didn’t even wear work-clothing but some short leopard skirt and a tasteless blue blouse.
"You want some suggestions?" she asked, hands pressed firmly on her hips, the nail file protruding from her hand like a horn.
I stepped backwards, left it to Belle to talk with her. I was so angry. The couple just stared in disbelief, whispering that I was right, at least that was something.
Belle told the woman we were here for the special screening and the woman said, again with the high-pitched glass-shattering voice: "Oh! CAAAAATS! That's great that's the only one we play. Come on step in!"
She gestured down to the right to the, apparently, only screenroom of the whole place. This movie better be funny, else I would call the police on them. She didn't ask for any money or gave us tickets, so we just got in, the couple right behind, followed us.
The disheveled man outside was now sitting on the street staring at us licking his hand and slapping himself with it.
We got inside the cinema hall and the canvas was still all white, all clean and pure. There was nobody checking us in, of course, there were only about six rows of seats and we took our places in the last one, warming up a bit again, giggling, cuddling. I calmed down a bit, I knew I had to ease up, Belle was as grown a woman as I and could take care of herself. Even though, the thought of her getting hurt was the most painful image my brain could produce for me.
"This is so fucked up!" said Belle. The couple, sitting the row before us, turned around and smiled, then laughed at each other.
“Let’s enjoy this train-wreck!” proclaimed the man. It was funny to see adults, true old adults, doing what we did. They seemed happy and had fun together. Maybe one day Belle and I would still do the same? Maybe watch CATS 5 then, already?
The lights went out, then it started. There was no logos no movie production company intros, no trailers. Just a short “starring” but it was gone before I could read the name. This was certainly odd, wasn’t there all kinds of Hollywood-stars in it?
Then the screen went total black. It took so long, I think the man before us was about to get up to call someone in to fix it, when something changed. It was just a man, stepping into the black screen from the side of the frame. He wore a suit and had black hair and seemed very... British.
"Hello ladies and gentlemen! It is my pleasure to introduce you, finally, to my new version of CATS!" then he went off, a bush of silver in his hair, glittering about.
“What the hell was that?” asked Belle rolling her eyes in annoyance.
“It’s art,” I said mockish.
Then the movie finally started, hallelujah!
The first scene showed a dirty room, apparently filmed with a shaky video camera. The floor was all concrete and filled with filth and dried up stains. What they were I don’t know, might be blood I think now. There was a person in the room, small and hidden in the corner, the back turned towards the audience. The person cowered in the corner, hands over his head. This was definitely not what I had expected from CATS.
"Well, that's odd," said the woman before us. Belle and I looked at each other, she raised an eyebrow.
"Weird," I said and shrugged. Head locked back onto the screen.
The person on the screen started to cry and to moan and tried to make itself even smaller, grey and filthy it was like a rat from the cloaca. The face must have been pressed directly on the wall.
"Why do you cry, Jon?" asked a deep booming voice off the screen, it shook me to the heart. The sound effects were really good!
"Why?!" asked the voice again when the person just kept sobbing on about, why then I didn’t know.
"I can't... Please," said the person as it turned around. Just for a split second, it was barely visible, hardly at all, the face looked like it had been melted off, down to the ivory bone, but the cut was so fast it was hardly possible for me to tell.
Cut: a young man with curled brown hair, was sitting in a kitchen and read his newspaper (like literally print) and stroked the dog to his feet who looked lovingly up at him. He put the cup on the table when all started shaking.
For a moment I really even considered it was an earthquake, but a quick glance around made my mistake evident. How crappy the plot was, the effects were really good. The cup fell over and the little dog started to whimper and to crouch at the man’s feet.
"No... No…" the man whispered and put his hands over his head, tears streaming down his face.
“Is that the guy from the other room?” asked Belle.
“Where’s Judi Dench?” I asked.
"Where is it?" whispered the voice from before, now directly into my ear. I jumped up in my seat as I heard it and screamed. Belle and the couple looked at me. The man asked if I also heard it while our partners just stared at us. This was really creepy. Just a creepy movie, right?
"I don't like that," said Belle and squeezed my hand. I put my arm around her and told her) it was nothing, just a movie, just good effects. Boy, I was wrong.
It had appeared on the screen by then. The body of the voice. I couldn't even make out what it was at first, just a shadow of some thing.
Next cut: the young man cowered in the kitchen, similar like in the first scene, his dog barked in panic as the shadow got closer.
Next Cut: The shadow was a second man. He was all naked, but something was wrong, his skin seemed peeled off at some parts, while other parts were just bone. Where some skin was left, it was covered in filthy orange hair, nearly as long as a woman's. His face wasn't visible as he had an orange bag over his head. On the bag though, was drawn in crude manner a cat's head, smiling wide.
"WHERE IS IT?" shouted the voice, raspy and metallic. Belle jumped in her seat, burrowing her face in my shoulders.
“This isn’t the CATS we wanted!” I whispered to her.
“Seems like a fucked-up art film,” she said.
Next cut: The man without skin was whistling and something followed him through the door. It was an armada of cats, all hairless, filling up the floor, hissing like crazy. The flayed man got on a chair, sitting there calmly, one leg over the other. With a long claw-like finger he sliced the skin over his ribcage and brought forth an oldstyle zippo-lighter.
He produced a cigarette from under his nailbed, before he burned a little hole in the bag where his mouth must have been, surely burning his lips but if so he didn’t make sound. Afterwards he lighted the cigarette, the mass of hairless cats all over him and the now shrieking young man and the whimpering little dog crouching all of them turning the normal kitchen into a nightmare Botticelli.
Then the flayed man smoked and smoked on, before he looked directly into the camera. “It is my great pleasure to introduce you, young three blossomed flowers and the rustly old gent here, to the finer revelations of the outside universe,” he said.
The couple looked up to us and then at each other.
“What the fuck!” said Belle.
Then the flayed man continued, the cat-drawing on his bagface staring mindlessly at us. “By design of all this unshaped handmade matter it is nonsense to think it is without goal in its immaculate formation. It is by art and experience of the craftsmen of the highest order a perfectly produced realization of an opinion rarely seen these days,” he said. “My delight is cut short however, if I may articulate the thought in a rudimentary form, that entropy is seen as enemy when in all rightly ways its congress with such fine specimen as you, it is, by all rights and orders known to gods and men, a perfect solution to the unquarreling mess you produced in the current inhibition of your laws,” he said. “In all serendipity this might have produced for the offspring of your kind, I will not allow it to flow so unrighteous on this good earth. May it be havoc or war or pestilence, I can certainly assure my kind has taken a keen interest in goading aforementioned entropy into the right places of this locus. Thus, finally, I assure, you need not worry over cosmic coincidence, as very soon a fate of molded matter is awaiting you,” he said and blew out blue smoke, before he continued. “Yes ladies and gentleman, I said it’s awaiting you.”
We all just looked in shock at another. What the hell was this movie?
“I’m going to get this fixed. I’m not watching this shit!” said the man in the row before us, getting up from his place, when the movie cut again and finally showed the true CATS we have been there to see.
“Finally!” said Belle, clapping her hands, relaxing.
“About time!” shouted the man from the row before us and sat down on his place. For a half minute they showed us all the glory of the uncanny CATS we had wanted to see. Probably the woman from the counter had played us a trick or something.
Then it went downhill.
Next cut: A woman, tied down, young men pouring gasoline over her.
Next cut: WW2 soldiers fighting each other with rocks and sticks.
Next cut: children pocking a maggot-riddled corpse with sticks.
Next cut: A man slicing his skin with a razorblade, his face already a mess of flesh-stripes.
Next cut: Tentacled things twisting and coiling in a dark pit.
Next cut: Close-up of a fly crawling over what must have been shit.
Next cut: an orange cat with a nearly human face, smiling and staring.
Next cut: A man in a white robe choking himself.
Next cut, next cut, next cut, next cut…I don’t know what else there was, but this went on so fast we didn’t even have the time to say something to each other, lest get out of this hellhole of a cinema. Belle had hidden herself in my chest, her hand tightly clinging onto mine.
Next cut: Again, the flayed man, the drawn face of his cat-bag staring at us. The camera zoomed out and heard the most agonizing screams. He was bowing over a woman, doing something to her face, blood and god-knows-what coming out of it as she shook under him, spilling all over even onto the lense of the camera, though I didn’t get a look on what she looked like. “Yes, ladies and gentleman, I said its awaiting you.”
"Please, let's go," said Belle, as she just started to walk out the room, not even waiting for me. I got up too, this got way to freakish I wanted to mock a bad movie not watch some version of "A Serbian Film”, and followed straight after Belle, down the stairs. I took a glimpse at the screen as we walked down towards the door: The flayed man had thrown himself on the whimpering man from before. He wailed in agony as he was burned to a crisp, simply by the touch. Within a second he was just a charred smoking mass of pinkish mud.
The skinless man got up and took the dog who whelped in frantic fear. With a loud slurp he devoured him whole, his mouth a gaping maw with the tongue whirling about anaconda in red it stuck to the dog and rolled it up real tight and then it went all back into the mouth, hidden in the orange bag as the head of the dog was still visible inside of the belly of the flayed man. The muffled barks, pure angst, sounded real.
"Already leaving?" I heard the middle-aged man ask from behind. I turned around and saw their faces. They grinned from ear to ear, but their eyes, meow, their eyes were gone! Just empty black holes staring at us. Belle shrieked behind me and as I turned, there was nothing.
I threw myself at the door, but she wasn’t behind it. Simply gone. The entrance hall was now filled with people.
There was a man in a butler-costume now too behind the counter. He and the woman with the high-pitched voice laughed at me, bursting my ear drums. There were two women next to the door, one of them stuffing herself with food and in the center of it all, suddenly a piano. A man played like a maniac on it. He wore sunglasses though it was dark outside and he followed my every step as I ran through them.
They all laughed as I ran out! Outside the cinema, I called for Belle but got no answer. I looked in panic around me and there he was: The flayed man! I saw his face. It was so... familiar. He got down on all four of his mutilated limbs, like an animal he slowly preyed towards me. I ran across the street, all empty all dark. Up to the train station.
"WHERE IS IT?" I heard behind me, but he was gone.
At the train station there was an old man. I cried and babbled and was a mad mess as he called the police. Nobody has seen Belle. They tell me the old rundown cinema had closed years ago. There was nothing about a missing couple on the news, or about Belle. Where is she. Where is it? WHERE IS IT?
I forwarded the message to my friend Jacques down in France, living not far from the Belgian border. He got back to me yesterday.
Hey Don, spooky stuff. I went up there but there's nothing. The place is closed, and all boarded up. What's really creepy though was them damn cats. Must have taken up there. Meowing all over the place. Honestly, didn't dare to get in, bad vibes were too big. I asked at townhall and they said place was abandoned, didn’t even know the name of the current owner. Best stay away from that shit. Jacques.
That's all I know, for now. I know most of you love horror films and that's all fine enough but stay away from Hollywood, dark stars are out there watching you, waiting, preying.
Yours truly,
Don Kowalski