Director – Eddy Matalon, Screenplay – Alain Sens-Cazanave, Myra Clement & Eddy Matalon, Producer – Nicole Mathieu Boisvert, Photography – Jean-Jacques Tarbes, Music – Didier Vasseur. Production Company – Makifilms/Les Productions Agora Inc..
Randi Allen (Cathy Gamble), Alan Scarfe (George Gamble), Beverly Murray (Vivian Gamble), Roy Witham (Paul), Mary Morter (Agatha), Renee Girard (Margaret Burton)
George Gamble moves into a new house with his wife Vivian and young daughter Cathy. Not long after they do so, Cathy starts to act obsessive about a doll she finds in the attic. Cathy then starts manifesting powers that kill others who treat her mean, while putting her mother in the hospital.
Cathy’s Curse was one of the films of the great era of Canuxploitation, where tax shelters allowed Canadian filmmakers to make a series of low-budget exploitation films. The era produced the likes of Ivan Reitman’s first film Cannibal Girls (1973), Death Weekend (1976), and slasher entries such as Prom Night (1980), Terror Train (1980), Happy Birthday to Me (1981), My Bloody Valentine (1981) and Visiting Hours (1982), as well as many of the David Cronenberg films of this period. Unlike most of these, Cathy’s Curse was shot in Quebec and was a French co-production. Although for the reasonable number of French-language people it has behind the camera, it is a surprise that the film is shot in English.
The film was birthed from the time that produced the massive hit of The Exorcist (1973) with a possessed Linda Blair manifesting all manner of deviltry, while just before this came out the Devil Child film The Omen (1976). Cathy’s Curse has another Evil Child at the centre of it who appears possessed (although is not confined to a bed) and manifests all manner of deviltry. There is also something of Carrie (1976) and its teenager manifesting psychic phenomena and wreaking vengeance.
Cathy’s Curse promptly becomes an unintentionally absurd film. Director Eddy Matalon wants to deliver a series of novelty death set-pieces, but these seem more absurd than anything. Cathy visits neighbour Renee Girard and makes a doll fly through the air out of Renee’s hands and then blasts her out of the window. There are visions of mother Beverly Murray’s food turning to maggots, while in another scene young Cathy (Randi Allen) stands around teleporting to different positions on the stairwell taunting her. The alcoholic babysitter Roy Witham has hallucinations of snakes, spiders and rats overrunning him.
There is a bizarre randomness to these manifestations that comes across as funny in ways the filmmakers probably didn’t intend. For some reason, the eyes on a portrait in the attic glow green. Rather hilariously, Cathy’s rampage is stopped when mother Beverly Murray grabs the doll and plucks its eyes out, which somehow causes Randi Allen to return to normal. All of this is anchored by young Randi Allen giving a cold and mean performance, while tossing off insults like “you fat whore” and “filthy female cow.”
Trailer here
Full film available here