Merci à Dieu: it’s half term. And the October break would not be complete without horror films.
Here at Le Château we enjoy them all year round, but they are especially pleasurable in the run-up to the best day of the year. Even Cat Daddy can be partial to the odd horror film in October, although he detests violence and gore (therefore not really getting what horror is meant to be about) and prefers to stick to the old classics or “the ones that have a good rating on Squashed Tomatoes” (which is what he thinks Rotten Tomatoes is called).
There are quite a few “Cats watching horror films” videos doing the rounds on social media and, whilst some of them are funny, it does seem a bit mean to deliberately scare cats for the amusement of strangers on the internet. What a good thing, then, that Louis Catorze is utterly unafraid of scary movies, which means I can watch what I like around him.
I have carried out extensive research with Sa Maj over the years to monitor his responses to various sub-genres within the main umbrella of horror, and my findings are listed below (on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 meaning no reaction whatsoever and 10 indicating that his “Urge To Kill” switch has been activated):
- Zombies: 0
- Werewolves: 0
- Poltergeists: 0
- Serial killers (including screaming victims): 0
- Demonic possession and/or exorcism: 0
- Psycho barking dogs infected with alien pathogen: 0
- Disfigured, cannibalistic mountain dwellers: 0
- Creepy children and their even creepier “imaginary” friends: 0
- Ancient Egyptian ghosts unleashed from their tombs by archaeologists who should have minded their own business: 0
- Vampires: 2 (purring and slow-blinking, presumably recognising them as his distant ancestors)
- Crickets chirping on a moonlit night: 10
- Seagulls (during an episode of X Files set in a coastal town): 10
This is by no means an exhaustive list as, no doubt, there are other sub-genres that I have not yet explored. Somehow it doesn’t seem quite so cruel doing this to a cat who has no idea how to be frightened so, if you have any other suggestions that you would like me to try out on the little sod, please let me know.

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