Review of Confessions of a Psycho Cat

This very-low-budget independent thriller--a gritty NYC Freudian rewrite of The Most Dangerous Game--was a real surprise to me, as its director has no other credits on the IMDB. Psychotic Eileen Lord (whose performance belongs on the same shelf as Jack Nicholson's in THE SHINING or Tab Hunter's in THE AROUSERS)hunts down three men--a junkie, an over-the-hill stage actor, and a professional wrestler down on his luck--and cackles with glee while she's doing it. The crisp B&W New York locations are so real you can taste them, and the small, sparse sets (and some real houses/apartments too, it seems to me) are shot imaginatively. The camera work is unconventional and the editing is tight and gives the film a good pacing. Unfortunately, this film, which probably ran about 55 minutes in its original form, is ruined by about 15 minutes of poorly-shot nudie footage edited in at a later date, or at least shot by someone else who had no style to speak of. These inserts, I suppose, allowed the film to play on the "adult film" circuit, and probably gave it more of an audience than it could have gotten otherwise. However, it really belongs on the same shelf with films such as THE THRILL KILLERS, and its true audience is lovers of 60s sleazy,grim horror-crime films. Nudie fans have hundreds of films to enjoy, but CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHO CAT is a rare gem that once seen is not soon forgotten. Perhaps the release of this on a snazzy new DVD will cause the makers to come out of the woodwork and talk to some film researchers...maybe someday there will be a DVD with DIFFERENT VERSIONS of the film, including one without the inserts? A must-see for students of 1960s independent cinema.