A Talking Cat!?!

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A “snake” eating its own “tail”

An Easter Bunny Puppy

We’re going to take an ever so short break from A Talking Cat!?! to talk about the intro to David DeCoteau/Mary Crawford’s newest straight to video release An Easter Bunny Puppy. I won’t be going through the whole film, like I’m doing with A Talking Cat!?!, but the intro can not be ignored!

First off, the credits roll to the same song (a simple minded cover of a French or Spanish song that I don’t know the name of) from the A Talking Cat!?! credits. The credits END on the title of the film, instead of starting on it.

An Easter Bunny Puppy DVD cover

Then we cut to the image of the DVD cover, which we stay on for 25 seconds. The image shows a “cute puppy” wearing bunny ears. Over our opening 25 seconds looking at a static image that doesn’t even fill the screen, we are treated to a voice over from our featured puppy. Who isn’t the puppy we are currently looking at. In fact, the voice over points out that the puppy that we’re looking at isn’t the puppy in the story.

The real An Easter Bunny Puppy

The real puppy is still cute, but it isn’t the puppy that the movie opens to. Okay, we get it. That’s not the real puppy. It’s a puppy on the cover of a book that’s being written in the movie. But why are you referencing it? And why is that the actual cover to the actual DVD of the actual movie we’re watching?

So the movie tells us to ignore that puppy, because it isn’t the puppy in this movie. But that’s the puppy we’re looking at when we decide to watch An Easter Bunny Puppy and that’s the puppy we’re looking at when An Easter Bunny Puppy starts.

This movie is self referential and extremely meta, but it’s holding itself up in front of itself as a form of defense. An Easter Bunny Puppy is one long knowing wink to itself in a mirror. It’s bad and it doesn’t make sense and it says as much in the film, but it’s still bad and doesn’t make sense. But it says that. But it doesn’t make sense. But WINK!

It is pretty amazing. Not A Talking Cat!?! amazing, but still pretty amazing.

The Director

A Talking Cat!?! is directed by David DeCoteau, even if the credits say it was directed by the pseudonym of Mary (or Marv, the font for the credits is terrible) Crawford.

Mary Crawford!?!
As stated on David DeCoteau’s IMDB biography, his mentor is famed B movie director Roger Corman. If you needed an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s work filmed in 24 hours, Corman was your man. Corman has also produced films such as Carnosaur, one of the first straight-to-video movie ripoffs (hitting video store shelves before Jurassic Park) that I can remember.

Before we get into David DeCoteau’s credits, let’s look at an excerpt from his mini-biography, which reads like a press release from David DeCoteau.

“His passion lies in the creation of popular genre programming made for world consumption. DeCoteau’s experience in creating content in countries all over the world makes him a proven choice for exceptionally challenging movie projects.”

Of course, most biographies read like someone looking for their next job. I remember this excerpt from Cary Grant’s biography.

“And if you ever need a charming man to be charming and handsome on a moving picture thing, Cary Grant can be reached at…”

I originally became aware of A Talking Cat!?! when David DeCoteau’s Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft appeared on Netflix. This was a straight-to-video movie ripoff of the mainstream Hansel & Gretel movie starring Jeremy Renner. Here is an excerpt from Jeremy Renner’s Biography.

“And if you ever need a handsome man to be handsome and tough on a moving picture thing, Jeremy Renner can be reached at…”

David DeCoteau’s big break was the straight-to-video (are you sensing a pattern here) Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge. Like Corman, David has also directed many terrible adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories.

Most recently, David DeCoteau has fallen into a pattern of three types of movies. The straight-to-video ripoff genre, as represented by Hansel & Gretel. “Family” films, like Christmas Spirit and A Halloween Puppy. And finally, the 1313 sub-genre of LGBT horror B-movie, with titles like 1313: Frankenqueen and 1313: Hercules Unbound!

Of note, the family films and the softcore 1313 films are all filmed in the same house used in A Talking Cat!?! If you see a surface in any of those films, there has probably been an animal and a bare ass on it.

Now, armed with some basic knowledge of David DeCoteau and his work, we’ll explore the inky depths of the pit (and the pendulum) that is A Talking Cat!?!