Strays (TV 1991)

A troubled family move to an isolated house, and find and adopt a couple of cats already in residence. These are not the only occupants however...

Director:

John McPherson

Writer:

Shaun Cassidy

Stars:

Kathleen Quinlan, Timothy Busfield, Claudia Christian

Cast

Cast overview:
Kathleen Quinlan	...	Lindsey Jarrett
Timothy Busfield	...	Paul Jarrett
Claudia Christian	...	Claire Lederer
William Boyett	...	Dr. Lyle Sokol
Heather Lilly	...	Tessa Jarrett (as Heather Lilley)
Jessica Lilly	...	Tessa Jarrett (as Jessica Lilley)
Gary McGurk	...	Phone Man
Eve Brenner	...	Old Woman
Michael McNab	...	Policeman

Storyline

A troubled family move to an isolated house, and find and adopt a couple of cats already in residence. These are not the only occupants however...

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Plot Keywords:

house | cat | feral | family relationships | dog

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Taglines:

The Jarretts have finally found their dream house...Now it's about to become their worst nightmare

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

18 December 1991 (USA)

Also Known As:

Artigli

Company Credits

Production Co:

Niki Marvin Productions, MCA Television Entertainment (MTE)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Lindsey Jarrett: So what are you try... say...? So we have a wild cat living in our backyard.

User Reviews

unconvincing and very, very stupid

Really stupid bad movie. An older woman with a lot of cats is attacked by something that more or less flies at her, apparently a feral cat (we don't see it, only hear it growling). A couple with a young daughter move into the house; the wife's sister is the real estate agent, and she is also a client of the husband, a divorce lawyer. The wife grows jealous of her sister and in fact, her sister does seem to be pretty slutty and controlling.

The daughter is annoying and stupid. The wife is hysterical, somewhat shrewish, and stupid. The husband is fairly stupid too. The cats (evidently the woman's pets now work for the strange black cat that killed her) as a threat are not particularly convincing. More or less, you have to fall down and be knocked unconscious to be seriously hurt by them.

At one point the husband tries to microwave his coffee. The microwave doesn't work because it has a badly frayed power cord. A divorce lawyer who works in the city can't afford to repair the cord or get a new microwave? With a young daughter in the house, you want a frayed wire (not to mention the fire hazard)? They don't even unplug the microwave when it proves unable to microwave when the cable is jiggled. There must be another reason why they don't replace it or unplug it... and there is. There are other elements in the movie that are similarly telegraphed way ahead of time.

The director likes a lot of cat point-of-view shots which gets to be pretty corny, and also likes zooms in on and close-ups of inanimate objects. There are also a couple of false endings at the end, where it seems like the movie should be over, but it keeps going.