Sure, Lily C.A.T. is Alien, but isn’t Alien also Queen of Blood, Planet of the Vampires and It! The Terror from Beyond Space? Hey, what if they throw in some of The Thing too?
The Syncam Corporation is investigating a new planet and has hired the deep-space cruiser Saldes to take a hypersleep trip of 20 years — which will feel like a month for its crew — to see what they can find. At least two of the crew are imposters and one of them is definitely a killer, which gets worse when each dead body disappears, a victim of a super bacteria, while another member of the crew — perhaps one you’d least expect — is something more than they seem.
Director Hisayuki Toriumi directed Gatchaman, the anime that was translated here as Battle of the Planets, while writer Hiroyuki Hoshiyama wrote episodes of The Ultraman, Urusei yatsura and Mobile Suit Gundam. These shows will not prepare you for how gory this movie is, even in its American version. That’s due to creature designer Yoshitaka Amano, who worked on Gatchaman and Vampire Hunter D.
My favorite part of this is when the captain explains how once you start time jumping, the things you are working for and the people you are making the money for no longer matter and you become forgotten. It’s a shockingly raw and honest moment of pain in the midst of a science fiction gore cartoon.
You can watch this on Tubi.
One thought on “Lily C.A.T. (1987)”
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I’ve had this sitting in a stack on my DVD player for years and STILL have somehow not seen it. Ugh. Too much to watch!