After the massive success of 1973’s Exorcist, a slew of movies about troubled and potentially evil children materialized. For one of these wannabes, we go to 1977’s Cathy’s Curse.

In 1947, a woman abruptly flees her home with her four-year-old son George. When her husband (Peter MacNeill) discovers George’s sister Joanne (Linda Koof), he departs with her, only for both to die in a fiery car crash.

This leaves the house empty for 30 years until adult George (Alan Scarfe) returns with his wife Vivian (Beverly Murray) and eight-year-old daughter Cathy (Randi Allen) as Vivian recovers from a miscarriage. Cathy starts to behave in problematic ways that may bear a supernatural connection to the events of 1947.

While Curse clearly wouldn’t exist without the popularity of Exorcist and siblings such as 1976’s The Omen, that doesn’t automatically mean it can’t offer a compelling genre entry. Plenty of movies walk upon well-trod ground and still manage to deliver an engaging product.

Indeed, we do find plenty of entertainment across Curse. However, virtually none of it stems from the scares and tension the filmmakers intended.

In general, I don’t tend to care for supposed “so bad they’re good” movies. For the most part, I just find them to seem awful and without the redeeming unintentional comedic value.

I will make an exception to this rule for Curse, though. A film so utterly odd and inept can’t help but bring amusement.

My oh my, I don’t even know where to start. Curse comes with so much clumsy weirdness that it would take a supercomputer the size of Iowa to thoroughly catalog all the insanity.

Make no mistake: Curse offers a total disaster of a film. Nothing about it succeeds as intended, so we wind up with a sub-amateurish calamity.

Though this didn’t have to be the result. Derivative though the “possessed child” concept may seem, competent filmmakers could’ve turned it into something chilling.

Unfortunately, the cast and crew of Curse lack even the most rudimentary cinematic skills. Plot holes and continuity errors abound, and scenes seem to begin and end virtually at random.

We wind up with odd, endless shots of people as they walk to places and sequences fail to depict the expected basic narrative development. Stuff just happens without logic or explanation.

The characters also make no sense. Despite the mounting collection of deaths and injuries, George seems bizarrely nonplussed, and others never appear impacted much.

For instance, in one scene Cathy purposefully tosses a bowl at the wall and causes it to shatter. The housekeeper acts as though the kid accidentally dropped the dish and doesn’t bat an eye at this provocative incident.

Even crazier, in another scene, Cathy disappears and transports herself literally in front of Vivian’s eyes. Rather than freak out, the mother just behaves as though her daughter played a silly prank.

These elements on their own prompt the aforementioned unintentional laughs, but the actors’ work adds to the comedy. One senses that the filmmakers cast the worst performers they could find and then told them all to play everything up to “11”.

Murray gets the gold star here via acting so wild-eyed that she makes Faye Dunaway’s notorious work in Mommie Dearest look positively lethargic. Perhaps Murray felt she needed to seem “off” to represent her character’s mental breakdown.

Whatever the case, Murray goes full-on batcrap crazy and overemotes to the Nth degree. Perhaps Murray knew she got stuck in a terrible movie and decided to run with it, but she still delivers one of the most awkward and unhinged performances I’ve ever seen.

Some laughs aside, Curse offers a terrible movie. Inept in every way, it fails to achieve its actual goals.

Note that the disc offers both the movie’s US Release Cut (1:21:49) as well as a Director’s Cut (1:30:59). The discussion above examines the longer version – how does the abbreviated US edition compare?

The shorter Curse makes even less sense, as scenes get chopped out apparently at random. Some text cards at the US version add context but the film nonetheless remains a muddled mess.

Cathy’s Curse appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. This became a watchable but dated presentation.

Sharpness varied. While some shots presented pretty good definition, more than a few others suffered from lackluster delineation. The movie usually showed reasonable clarity, but it often looked vaguely soft, a factor that seemed exacerbated by some gauzy photography.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain seemed fairly natural and occasional specks and marks popped up, though not to a problematic degree.

The film opted for a somber brown feel, and the tones echoed that. While they showed a bit of pep at times, the hues generally seemed a bit bland. HDR added a little zing to the tones but not much.

Blacks were decent but unexceptional, and shadows tended to come across as moderately thick. Whites and contrast received a minor boost from HDR, though as with the colors, these domains didn’t show a notable improvement. Although I never found this to be a bad transfer and it likely offered a reasonable representation of the source, it showed too many concerns to rate higher than a “B-”.

As for the film’s DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack, it also felt like part of its era. Speech always remained intelligible, though the lines could seem pretty edgy at times.

Music showed acceptable clarity, though the score lacked much range. Effects also came across as flat and displayed occasional distortion. Nothing here seemed bad for a mix from 1977, but the audio still felt meh at best even with that caveat.

As noted in the body of my review, the disc came with both the Director’s Cut and a US Release Cut of Curse. Both stink.

Alongside the US cut, we get an audio commentary from journalist Brian Collins and filmmaker Simon Barrett. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific look at differences between the dual cuts as well as their thoughts about the film.

That latter domain dominates, so don’t expect to learn much about the production. Instead, we get a piece related to how Barrett and Collins feel about Curse.

Though “fan commentaries” like this usually veer heavily toward relentless praise, a good 75 percent of this one embraces snark. While Barrett and Collins make it clear they do love the movie, they also point out its many, many flaws.

Indeed, they seem to enjoy it because of its problems. Anyway, this never turns into an especially insightful commentary, but it seems breezy and enjoyable enough.

The 4K also provides two of the film’s trailers, but the remaining extras show up on an included Blu-ray copy. Three featurettes follow, and Tricks and Treats goes for 20 minutes, 16 seconds. It brings a chat with director Eddy Matalon.

Here we learn about his career as well as aspects of the Curse production. Barrett and Collins state that the Director’s Cut will come with a commentary, but instead, we just get this interview.

I don’t know why Matalon only recorded this brief conversation and not a full commentary. Nonetheless, this program offers a reasonably informative view of the film, especially because Collins and Barrett tell us so little about the actual shoot.

Cathy’s Daddy spans 11 minutes, 57 seconds. This program features info from actor Alan Scarfe.

He covers aspects of career as well as his experiences on the Curse shoot. Expect another reasonably informative chat.

Finally, Cathy & Mum occupies 12 minutes, 33 seconds. It offers remarks from actor Randi Allen and her mother, costume designer Joyce Allen.

Randi dominates, as she covers her memories of the production, and Joyce adds some perspective. We find a pretty engaging reel.

In addition to the same two trailers from the 4K, the disc concludes with an Introduction to Cinematic Void/American Cinemateque Screening from Collins. He just delivers some perfunctory thoughts in this two-minute, seven-second clip,

Note that I found an Easter egg here via a video promo – but don’t ask how. It popped up but I couldn’t recreate whatever I did to see it!

The package also includes a booklet with essays from Collins and Barrett. Neither tells us much but they’re entertaining, especially the tongue in cheek writings of Barrett.

Note that this set's Blu-ray does not appear to be the same one released in 2017. The 2024 disc adds the interview with Scarfe and an additional trailer. As of April 2024, Severin has not announced plans to issue this 2024 BD on its own.

A horror film with literally no talent or skill behind it, Cathy’s Curse provides some entertainment due to camp value. While a complete failure as part of its genre, at least the utter ineptitude on display brings some unintentional laughs. The 4K UHD provides acceptable picture, mediocre audio and a mix of bonus materials. Unless you dig “so bad it’s good” films, avoid this clunker.