Fish & Cat (Persian title: ماهی و گربه, pronounced "Mahi va Gorbeh") is a 2013 Iranian horror film.
The plot of the movie, which is Very Loosely Based on a True Story, goes a little something like this: A group of college-students camp out at a lakeside near a desolate forest while waiting for a kite-flying festival. Meanwhile, two men run a restaurant nearby and are running short on supplies of meat, with nothing to hunt in the forest. Of course, except for the students.
Now, you could probably guess where it goes from here.....except not.
Directed by Shahram Mokri, Fish & Cat is incredibly unique in that while it follows the typical template of a Slasher Movie, it features a plethora of elements that make it unlike anything else out there. Firstly, there are no on-screen kills or any visual depictions of violence at all; the scares come from a heavy dose of Fridge Horror brought on by the implications of what the killers are planning by what they do, what they say, and how they interact with each other and those around them. Second, the narrative often goes back and forth between the same scenes from the perspectives of different characters, making for a complex story in which the pieces of the puzzle come together with repeated viewings. Third, and most notably, the entire movie was shot in a single 134-minute take, making it one of the longest one-shot films ever made.
The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 6, 2013, and received mostly positive reviews, receiving praise for its acting, story, and innovation, though some were critical of its length, which many believed was far too long for a movie of its type, while others believed it wouldn't have worked any other way. The film was later released on DVD via Trigon Film, an international film distributor from Switzerland, and is region-free for those looking to purchase it in the United States.
The film provides examples of the following tropes:
- Nothing Is Scarier: The film's main source of tension. We don't actually see any horrors on screen, but through the dialogue, we hear about them, which is arguably just as creepy given how casually mentioned it is.
- Slasher Movie: Was marketed and billed as one, but as explained, it is anything but a straight example. The easiest movie to compare it to would likely be The Boy (2015), as it is almost entirely dialogue-driven and psychological with violence offscreen while still following the genre's template.
