When the film begins, Frank Lucas (Kent Smith) opens up a mummy case and finds a VERY strange mummy. Its body is human but the head looks like a cat...much like the ancient Egyptian god, Bastet. Soon, the creature comes to life and kills him! Surely this is a tad unusual!
Soon a nice young woman leaves work and on her way home, sees a nice black kitty and takes it home. Little does she know but it's the cat form of that mummy from the beginning of the picture and it soon hypnotizes her and makes her off herself!! This cat is one ungrateful creature, as the woman was trying her best to be kind to the creature...BAD KITTY!!!
You soon learn that the dead woman worked at an occult bookstore run by Hester Black (Gale Sondergaard)...a most unusual old lady! She has just hired a woman (Meredith Baxter with dark hair--according to IMDb, it was a wig) to replace the one who just jumped to her death.
Next, the detective investigating the case (Stuart Whitman) invites an archaeologist (David Hedison) to help him with the first murder. After all, the empty mummy case was there and Lucas was killed while examining the mummy inside. But the archaeologist notices that the mummy is gone and didn't disintegrate...there was no dust nor bandages. Instead, he tells the detective a goofy story about a cat cult that existed up until the 4th century BC and how its followers had the power to turn into cats at will!!! Yeah...okay....the cat cult.
The trail leads the two to Hester's weird occult shop. There they put 2 and 2 together...and realize the dead woman used to work in that shop! So what's next and how will this new shop employee figure into all this? See the film.
There is a lot of dopey religious mumbo-jumbo and the plot is silly when you learn the whole story. HOWEVER, at the same time, it's also highly entertaining...in a kitschy sort of way. So although stupid, some folks enjoy a silly horror film and this one certainly IS silly! Enjoyable and outrageous! The ending had me in stitches!!!!!!! Clearly a case where it's so bad, it's good!
A WORD OF NOTE: In the film is a tiny part played by Peter Lorre Jr. (the pawnbroker). It is important to point out that he is NOT related in any way to Peter Lorre and Lorre in fact sued to force him to stop using this fictitious name. I have no idea what happened to this jerk....but I am glad he apparently just disappeared from films.
