its nails clipped. During small talk,
Mike lets slip that he’s an aspiring
filmmaker, and rather than rolling
her eyes, Cora professes a genu-
ine interest. The two agree to a
date the following evening.
Can Mike clear his rat-infested
home before Cora turns up? At-
tempts to reason with his hippy
landlord (Honey Davis) hit a dead
end. In a last ditch attempt to
solve his problem, Mike steals a
troublesome cat from his work,
hoping nature will take its course
and the moggy will lay siege to his
NJ STAGE - ISSUE 70
unwanted rodent lodgers.
With its Hollywood setting and
shot on video aesthetic, She’s
Allergic to Cats plays like a more
accessible and mercifully shorter
companion to David Lynch’s
Inland Empire. Trippy montages
filled with video static, dodgy
tracking, slo-mo screams and mys-
terious nightmare imagery lead
us to believe it’s a far darker story
than the relatively low-stakes dra-
ma that’s really at play here. Such
dream sequences can be read as
visualisations of Mike’s crippling
INDEX
NEXT ARTICLE
44