Not horror, per se, but horrifying all the same.
I stumbled across Are We Not Cats on Amazon after watching Housewife–a movie I’ll have to watch a second time before I can formulate a coherent thought about it. The main reason I chose for my wife and I to watch Are We Not Cats is because it was getting late and the movie is only 76 minutes long. I’d never heard of any of the actors (the lead, Michael Patrick Nicholson, doesn’t even have a picture of himself on IMDB), nor had I heard of the director, Xander Robin.
It’s a love story of sorts–a guy down on his luck runs into a girl who is unhappy with her current mate. But this isn’t a run-of-the-mill Rob Reiner-esq romantic comedy. It’s…different. Both Eli, the lead character, and his love interest Anya (Chelsea Lopez) have a thing for eating hair. (Google tells me this is called trichophagia, if you’re interested). Anya, in fact, seems to not only do it compulsively but also has a fetish for hair-eating. If you’ve ever seen a cat hacking up a hairball, you’ve probably deduced that hair doesn’t travel too easily through the digestive system. The digestive systems of Eli and Anya are no different, hence the title.
It’s dark, odd, and at times shocking. And, honestly, it’s a great film–artistically shot and superbly performed by a no-name cast. I think director Xander Robin could have taken it a little further in the film’s biggest cringe scene, especially given that it’s a pretty short movie. That scene being as short as it is not only deescalates the shock factor too quickly, but also robs the movie of some believability. You’ll see what I mean when you watch it; I don’t want to give it away.
It’s well worth the zero cents you need to watch it on Amazon.