Short British horror film, released in 2001. A mixture of live-action and stop-motion animation, it was written, directed, and animated by Robert Morgan.
It focuses on an old man telling his younger companion an old folk tale about a cat that has human hands in place of its front paws, and of the terrible things that the cat does.
This work provides examples of:
- Animalistic Abomination: The titular cat, a man-eating monstrosity that is stealing parts from humans to become one itself.
- Become a Real Boy: The cat's goal is to become human, which it accomplishes by stealing people's parts, a bit at a time. The last part it needs is a human's tongue, which it steals from the old man.
- Body Horror: It stars a cat with human hands. And eventually more human parts than that.
- Cats Are Mean: The Cat with Hands is the villain of the story, stealing human body parts and then devouring them. Becoming a person doesn't make it any nicer.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: The old man isn't a very good singer, tending toward severely flat.
- Hong Kong Dub: The one word spoken by the young man isn't even vaguely lip-synced.
- Humanoid Abomination: The young man is actually the cat.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The cat eats humans once it's taken a part from them.
- Kiss of Death: The kiss doesn't kill him, but it definitely signals that the old man is nearing his end.
- The Quiet One: The companion does not seem to say much. Until he takes the old man's tongue.
- Stop Motion: A flashback is told entirely through eerie stop-motion animation.
- Tear Off Your Face: The cat does this to the boy in the flashback, taking the face for its own.
- Tongue Trauma: The old man's tongue is pulled out by his younger companion, who is also the cat.
