‘Don’t Let the Cat Out’ Review: A Sensational Indie Horror Movie [Panic Fest 2025]
I love my cat. A lot. Sure, sometimes he’s a bit of a brat, and he’s pretty regularly dishonest, but the lil’ guy is just doing his best in a big, scary world he doesn’t really understand. Key to that love—and the full conversations I’ll have with him—is this nascent sense of anthropomorphism. We all do it with our pets. Tim Cruz’s Don’t Let the Cat Out takes that anthropomorphism to the extreme as a feline-obsessed couple quite literally look to transfer the soul of their beloved cat, Hazel, into the body of a human. I don’t often resonate with horror villains, though these folk… I kind of get it.
Charlie (Anthony Del Negro) has clearly never seen The House of the Devil. After some synthetic scoring and a bold title card (a norm in the indie horror scene today), Charlie is introduced to Evelyn (Cerina Vincent) and Rodney (Jordan James Smith). He’s set to housesit for them, or more appropriately, cat sit, and he consciously ignores how strange the entire set-up is. Probably principally, he’s allergic to cats, and the couple plan to leave him there for the entire night, despite first promising that they wouldn’t be later than ten.
Oh, and there’s an incredulous list of instructions for the cat, including but not limited to: don’t pet her, don’t take her picture, and don’t let her out… no matter what she tells you. Friend Travis (Sterling Sulieman) gets it, regularly urging Charlie to just book it. This couple is weird, their house is weird, and Rodney’s fascination with Egyptology and the occult is a big, flashing horror movie warning sign. Charlie doesn’t listen, some terror ensues, and he’s soon bound and gagged S&M style as the newest vessel prepared for Hazel’s soul.
If it sounds complicated, it’s really not, and it’s a boon to Cruz’s condensed, fun little slasher. Cat and mouse isn’t just a punny descriptor, it’s an apt one. Charlie, dressed as a cat, spends most of the film endeavoring to escape alongside friends and previous victims. The rhythm will be familiar. He gets close, encounters an obstacle, and then needs to try, try again. While the constant tension can grow a little tiresome, a committed cast and colorful visuals augment the more visceral, tactile elements. It’s lean, mean, fat-free horror filmmaking with a silly concept and plenty of violence.
Whether it amounts to anything of note is discretionary. While not thematically hefty, there was novelty in the conceit, and the subversion of common horror tropes—and some fun costuming—kept me engaged even as the catch-and-release veered a little too closely to the indie horror titles of the genre’s past, including Vicious Fun and Monster Party. Those indies saw modest success thanks to stellar filmmaking, and Don’t Let the Cat Out is no doubt poised to do the same.
This is fun genre filmmaking, a concept bold enough to attract viewers and accomplished enough to keep them there. While the title might urge you to keep the cat inside, the titular feline is already out of the bag. And it should be. Let it stay there. It’s not going to rock your world, but as the equivalent of a cat crawling up and resting on your lap, Don’t Let the Cat Out is pretty nice and comforting while it lasts.
Don’t Let the Cat Out premiered at this year’s 2025 Panic Fest.
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Don't Let the Cat Out
Summary
Don’t Let the Cat Out is a strange, hypnotic indie that’s feline fresh in its thrills and kills.
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