Uninvited (1988)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Fantastic!

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

UNINVITED is a gruesome straight-to-video horror film from director Greydon Clark, the guy whose long-running exploitation career includes the creepy alien film THE WARNING. This low-budget offering is set almost entirely on a yacht, in which an assorted group of passengers including the usual vacationing teenagers and some old-time gangsters find themselves assailed by a mutant cat which has just escaped from a local laboratory.Sounds cheesy? It is, and then some. This film suffers from poor production values and a general lack of coherence, and some very dodgy acting particularly from the younger cast members really doesn't help. Still, you do get a bunch of old-timers in smaller roles, including George Kennedy, Austin Stoker, Clu Gulager, and Alex Cord. I guess their fees is where most of the budget ended up going.This film follows the usual slasher template of having the unseen killer going around bumping off the group one by one until only a couple of people remain. The cat itself is a somewhat laughable creation - the special effects simply aren't up to the job of animating it in a convincing way - but the many gore effects are elaborate and wince-inducing, and rather brilliant. I read somewhere that this film was rated PG-13 in America, which is incredible because it's one of the most imaginatively gruesome films of the 1980s that I can remember watching. UNINVITED is no classic, but for lovers of cheesy '80s horror it's a real treat.

A deadly mutant cat escapes from a Florida research lab. The ferocious feline finds its way onto a luxurious yacht and proceeds to terrorize the motley assortment of passengers aboard said yacht. Boy, does this gloriously ludicrous honey possess all the right wrong stuff to qualify as a real four-star stinkeroonie: The ham-fisted (mis)direction by always dependable schlocko specialist Greydon Clark (who not only also wrote the supremely asinine script, but also makes a cameo appearance as an ill-fated doctor at the start of the flick), the laughable premise, the uproariously shoddy (far from) special effects (the cat is a pathetically obvious puppet that resembles a huge wet rat!), the cheesy gore, the tacky redundant synthesizer score, and the jaw-dropping "it ain't over yet!" sequel set-up non-ending all provide a wealth of unintentional belly laughs. The welcome presence of three down on their luck faded name thespians slumming for a quick paycheck further enhances the overall campy merriment: Alex Cord as smooth sleazeball high roller Walter Graham, George Kennedy as the grouchy Mike Harvey, and, in a positively sidesplitting turn, Clu Gulager as the pitiful Albert, who's a hopelessly wimpy and browbeaten psycho nerd complete with buck teeth and coke bottle glasses. As a tasty extra plus, sexy babes Shari Shattuck and Clare Carey both look smoking hot in revealing bikinis. "Assault on Precinct 13" star Austin Stoker pops up in a small part as a Caribbean officer. Only Nicholas von Sternberg's slick and fluid cinematography manages to effectively surmount the pervasive cruddiness. An absolute crummy hoot and a half!

(Plot) A mutated cat escapes and somehow manages to hop aboard a yacht to wreak havoc, and kill people. I haven't seen many movies that are as bad as this one. It does have moment's of cheesy fun, in a so bad its good way, but it's quite dull a lot of the time as well. Let's start off by how cheap looking it is. Despite that a lot of this takes place on an expensive looking Yacht, it can't cover up the amateurish production values. At the very start of the movie, the screen says "Amazing movies presents" Either that was supposed to be a joke, or they really were that arrogant, and actually thought this laughable junk was a good idea. The cat himself is ridiculous. When it transforms, it looks like a dog or something is coming out of it. It was rather tough to make out what it was, but it came across extremely poorly. A mutated cat doesn't intimidate me what so ever. How does it manage to do the things it does? How does it survive so many incredulous predicaments? I had many questions that never got answered. There is gore here, and things do get bloody. We get some very gory cat bites, grisly effects from the bites. My favorite is when Clu Gulager spits booze on the cat. It hisses succinctly before mutating. I laughed my ass off. Toni Hudson (Rachel) is good eye candy, and that's about it. Stars like George Kennedy & Clu Gulager are clearly desperate for a paycheck to pay off some bills. Why else would they star in this crap? Final Thoughts: Too inconsistent to be fully entertaining in a so bad, it's good way. It's one of the worst movie's I've ever seen, and I've seen WAY too many movies. That is saying something, isn't it? There is a reason this went to DTV in lieu of getting a theatrical release. DUD(out of 10)

Uninvited starts in some genetics research laboratory where two scientists (including writer, producer & director Greydon Clark) are about to cut open a failed experiment when it escapes, although the experiment looks like an ordinary Cat something nasty lurks within it that can burst out at any moment & viciously shred it's it's victims to death... Bobbie (Clare Carey) & Suzanne (Shari Shattuck) are both friends who meet up with millionaire businessman Walter Graham (Alex Cord) who invites them to a party on his yacht, Bobbie & Suzanne decide to go & take along three male friends & a stray cute looking Cat they find. Needing to get to the Cayman islands & his bank in order to draw out millions of dollars before the SEC puts him in prison & freezes his assets Graham says the kids can come if they help out on the yacht which they agree to. During the voyage the Cat turns killer on numerous occasions while they hopelessly drift miles off course, stuck out at sea with a killer mutant Cat things look bad...Written, produced & directed by Greydon Clark this straight to video killer Cat creature feature is considered a solid gold classic amongst most bad film lovers, while I can see a certain attraction & entertainment value I wouldn't say Uninvited was particularly good in any way even for unintentional laughs. The script isn't great, for some strange reason Clark decided to have a fluffy docile Cat as the evil creature in his film rather than a vicious Dog for example. OK, sure this other mutant Cat creature emerges every so often but even that is nothing more than a fluffy hand puppet with sharp teeth. There's no great explanation behind this creature, why or how it was created is a mystery while the yacht setting is rather bland & one would have though it wouldn't have been too difficult to find a Cat aboard a fairly small yacht & defend oneself from it. There's some choice dialogue here, the character's are all a bit too annoying with the all American teens particularly while the old acting pros manage to give their character's a bit of life. At only 86 minutes at least it's fairly short, it moves along at a decent pace & is watchable in a bad sort of way but I could see many simply being bored & underwhelmed with it. The ending too is absurd with the killer Cat holding onto a floating briefcase in order to stop drowning! Still much better than most of the crappy creature features that the Sy-Fy Channel make & show though.The special effects are predictably anything but special, the Cat creature that comes out of the normal Cat's mouth seems even bigger than a normal Cat so quite how it can come out & go back inside again is a mystery. The sinking boat at the end is obviously a model although there are a few decent gory moments like bubbling skin, bubbling & exploding throat wounds, bitten ankles, burn faces, blood splatter & bitten off fingers. Although everyone is supposed to be hot & enjoying themselves there's obviously a bit of a breeze & it looks quite windy at times which destroys the Caribbean cruise feel. Ffairly ineptly made with the scientist leaving the door open of a top secret research laboratory just so the cat can escape or the scene when the truck crashes & changes make & model as well as the baffling sound effect of nothing but breaking glass as it rolls over & over down the hill.Filmed in Los Angeles & Florida this probably had a very low budget hence the hand puppet monster & the single yacht setting. The acting is bad, there's a pretty good cast of character actor's here including Alex Cord, George Kennedy & Clu Gulager complete with comedy false teeth who are all fun to watch slumming it at the wrong end of their careers.Uninvited is an amusing creature feature of little competence & while it has a few fun moments & a good cast of veterans it's still not very good. Not to be confused with the recent Hollywood supernatural horror flick The Uninvited (2009).