I have re-watched the “Man-Eating Zombie Cats” last night.
It could be considered a waste of time, but I have watched “Hit & Miss”
mini-series, and was in the mood for something different, something simpler
than the high-strung and high-notched criminal drama that “Hit & Miss” is.
“Zombie Cats” did not disappoint.
What can be said about this special? I have mentioned it in
the past, when I was discussing AP’s ‘monster specials’ in general detail, but
this time I should describe “Zombie Cats” in some greater details: this special
is not so much as non-scientific, as it is just lousy.
The concept in and of itself is not that poor, just poorly
delivered and poorly developed: the canine distemper virus (basically, a form
of the disease known as rabies) has infested the great cats, causing them to
lose fear of people and begin to attack them. (Curiously, the smaller felines,
like the domestic cats, have their own strain of the rabies instead.) Even on
this level, this statement is undercut, as the humans’ encroachment on the
great cats’ habitat is mentioned very often on one hand, and the whole topic of
cats being infected with rabies is not being fully developed – it does not go
much beyond what I have said already. Structurally, “Zombie Cats” consists
largely of several enacted episodes of people (and their dogs) encountering
large felines – cougars, leopards, tigers, etc – with various outcomes,
intermeshed with much shorter statements about the distemper virus and the encroachment
on the cats’ habitat. These various parts do not mesh together very well, and
combined they make “Zombie Cats” sound like a very poor version of the now
cancelled “MonsterQuest” series (a series not without its own problems, but
quite coherent), and not a horror/monster special.
Secondly, the zombie aspect was actually undercut by the
whole canine distemper virus angle. Animals with this strain of disease – dogs,
great cats, racoons, weasels, etc – do not behave like zombies; by now the
modern media has created a certain idea of zombie: it is either an undead
corpse, animated by magic, or... still a corpse, animated by a virus or
something similar; various shows, such as “Lost Tapes,” “Deadliest Warrior”,
and, of course, “The Walking Dead” series have perpetuated this image far and
wide. A single zombie is not a threat; it is just a shambling corpse, hungry
for brains (and other fleshy part of the living) that it seeks out without any
strategy or tactics: it just shambles on and on in a straight line, and while a
crowd of zombies can eventually tear down any obstacle (such as a door), a
canny and adaptable human can escape them by climbing a tree or a similar
landmark, for a zombie can’t climb, and they generally aren’t smart enough to
even look upwards or to the side.
Conversely, the great cats in the “Man-Eating Zombie Cats”
did all that; they behaved the way that the normal great cats do, albeit ones
thrust into abnormal, urban, man-made habitats. Naturally, tragedies occur at a
regular basis. But the rabies, or canine distemper, virus had nothing to do
with it; all of the animals featured in this show were quite healthy. The
rabies does not make animals into zombies; it may force them to act slow and
stupid (to human eye, at any rate) on occasion, but they are still quite
capable of fast attacks – this is what makes rabid dogs, racoons and similar
creatures so dangerous.
Either way, “Man-Eating Zombie Cats” is not about real life;
it even is not convincing pretending that there is anything real. Some other
specials, like the ones about the mermaids or Megalodon, have a healthy dose of
reality; “Zombie Cats” do not. Instead, it is something of a “MonsterQuest”
imitation and unsuccessful one – and that why it fails.
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