#denis heroux

[brother-father]

Born For Hell (1976) dir. Denis Héroux

[grindhousecellar]

[roserosette]

Valérie, 1969, Denis Héroux

[thingsiwant-nl]

[slimewalk]

[grindhousecellar]

[schlock-luster-video]

On May 30, 2025, The Uncanny was screened on FFB Movie Night.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | The Uncanny (Héroux, 1977)

I respect the extent to which this builds its style around its feline stars. We get sinister cat closeups as dramatic chords play on the soundtrack. We get zoom ins and zoom outs on the little fellas. We sometimes get purring, meowing and hissing more than actual dialogue. This isn’t completely shot in Gatovision, but nevertheless conveys that it’s a cats’ world and we’re just living in it. This 100% delivers on its amazing poster.

Of course when you juxtapose man and beast, and particularly one of the animal kingdom’s most selectively emotive and pokerfaced creatures, it brings human nature into relief. It is us who are capable of evil great and small. The cats are forces of vengeance, but essentially represent kitten karma. The characters receive their comeuppance via cat for their misdeeds. Well except in one sequence where the vengeance is by a human and the cat is an aggrieved party. That sequence also has you root against a literal child. Respect. Children can be innocent and pure but they can also be little monsters. This movie understands this. It is full of wisdom.

Anyway, this is an anthology where all the segments are pretty fun, varied in tone and concept, and totally adorable. There is some Rank Organisation flavour with some of the more recognizable faces, but it reveals itself as unmistakably Canadian when it takes the action to Quebec in between London and Hollywood. I found Denis Héroux’s Born for Hell too punishing for my taste, but this one is much more my speed.

This is an important day for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the start of Spooky Season, and I picked a winner to kick things off.