Mrs. Ashboro's Cat (2003)

Admirable film.

Absolutely Brilliant!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

"Ghost Cat" or "Mrs. Asboro's Cat" is a family film from 2004 starring a young Ellen Page, Michael Ontkean who at 58 here still looks like he did on The Rookies, Lori Haller, and Shirley Knight as Mrs. Ashboro.The story concerns an elderly woman (Knight) and her cat Margaret, both of whom pass away. Mrs. Ashboro had her house up for sale, at her nephew's prodding, which is when Wes Merritt and his daughter Natalie (Ontkean-Page) look at the house. Then she changes her mind. Margaret the cat shows up to help Natalie, her dad, and the animal shelter owner (Haller) from time to time, especially as people are trying to destroy the animal shelter in order to get the property. It looked to me as if the producers used an older cat for Margaret, which makes sense.This was cute. Not everything has to be bloodshed or special effects. Every once in a while, a story about a ghost cat is all you need.

This is a really cool movie! I enjoyed it immensely, and watch it every time it is on TV.This movie, "Ghost Cat", deserves to be on DVD!It's the ultimate Halloween movie for the whole family.If you are an animal lover, "Ghost Cat" will be one of your favorite movies.Maybe if we all contact Animal Planet, or the Studio that made the movie, and ask them to put this movie on DVD, they will.Ghost Cat has a special charm to it, that is sorely lacking in many movies.It is a very special movie.Let's put it on DVD!

**SPOILERS** Cat ghost story about a cat's, Margaret, spirit coming back from the beyond to protect and help those who were her long time owners Mrs. Ashboro, Sherley Knight, friends from her both scheming and conniving nephew Boyd, Barrett, and unscrupulous local real-estate developer Ted Riker, Nigel Bennett.After his wife suddenly passed away Wes Merrett and his teenage daughter Natalie, Michael Ontkean & Ellen Page, moved back to Ringwood where the late Mrs. Merrett grew up. Meeting Mrs. Ashboro in order to buy her house she tells the couple that it's not for sale and that her nephew Boyd has no right to sell it to anyone without her approval. It's only later when Mrs Ashboro suffers a fatal stroke that things start to become strange and ghostly to everyone who knew her. The day after Mrs. Ashboro's funeral her 15 year-old pet cat Margaret suddenly passes away from a broken heart. The Merretts, with Mrs. Ashboro now longer living there, end up buying and move into the old Ashboro house.Not knowing just what's going on behind the scenes in town Wes & Natalie begin to be visited at night by Mrs. Ashboro's cat Margaret. The cat wants to alert them on the impending danger that's about to happen to not only them but to Mrs. Ashboro's good friend and neighbor Brenda, Loni Hallier, who runs an animal shelter in the town.Boyd had been embezzling his clients at his job at the Ridgewood Savings and Loan by secretly putting their money into this very speculative stock Graydon Industries that later dropped 90% leaving him as much as $50,000.00 in the hole. Getting it straight from the grapevine that he and everyone else in the bank are to be audited at the end of the month Boyd is desperate enough to even murder in order to keep from ending up behind bars.Knowing that his aunt Mrs. Ashboro has a large amount of cash in a bank safe deposit box Boyd get's to have it opened but finds that it's practically empty. Meanwhile Brenda is under pressured to sell her property, that's holding up his multi-million dollar housing development, to this annoying and pushy real-estate agent Riker. The two sleaze-balls, Boyd & Riker, become allies in getting Brenda to relinquish her property by getting the bank holding her mortgage to threaten to for-close. Natiale meanwhile had become very friendly with both young Person and Kurt, Mark Rendell & Shawn Roberts, who both work as volunteers at Brenda's animal shelter and also have a stake in her not having to lose it to the bank.Margaret communicate to Natalie to where the money, that Mrs. Ashboro took out of her safe deposit box, is. This lead her to a dry cat food package where there's not only the $50,000.00 but a note, or will, left by Mrs. Ashboro leaving it to Brenda to keep her animal shelter from being seized by the bank. Boyd finding out that the money that he so desperately needed has gone to Brenda becomes more desperate then ever to take it off her hands with the bank audit just days away and him facing not only the loss of his job but a long stretch in the state pen. Boyd was such a nosy creep that he checked every transaction that Brenda made finally finding out that she deposited the $50,000.00!Now at the end of their lines with jail and financial ruin facing them Riker and Boyd start to get real dirty in planning to burn down Brenda's place, including the animal shelter, together with her and everyone including Natalie and Kurt as well as the animals in it in. Unknown to Riker & Boyd there was just one hitch in their what seemed like perfect plan: Mrs. Ashboro's cat Margaret.Moving as well as exciting cat comes to the rescue movie with Margaret the ghost cat foiling Boyd's and Riker's sinister plans. Margaret not only saving the lives of Natalie Kurt as well as the animal's in Brenda's animal shelter but taking off after the fleeing arsonists and giving them the shock to end all shocks that they'll never forget for the rest of their lives.

This is a simple children's movie with all the classic Disneyesque components, evil nephew trying to get his hands on his late aunts estate, kind hearted woman trying to save all the animals and implants from the big city relocating to "start over". It's not that great - I only watched it because of the cat - the acting was rather wooden and although i was fooled by the New York licence plates, my instincts were still good - it was Canadian, wooden - why is it that we Canucks can do brutal stuff well like 'life after billy' and the story of the Christian Brothers abuse, but we do general stuff so badly - I'm not sure if it's just poor directing (after all we have great canadian actors who go on to make in in other milieus) Anyway, simple stuff for kids, no one ends up dead (except the ghosts of course!)