Crew
Screenplay – Blake Blasko, Curtis Everett, Donald Farmer, Blair Kelly, Stephanie E. Kelly, James M. Myers, Melvin Pittman, Tim Ritter & Serena Salieri, Creator/Producer – Donald Farmer, Photography – William Buster Benefield, Curtis Everett, Donald Farmer, Blair Kelly, Tim Ritter, Jerry Williams & Logan Winton, Music – Magicians of the Cookie, Tim Ritter & Tre Da Joker, Digital Visual Effects – The Huckbros, Makeup Effects – Jason Boyd, Tori Faith, Erika Gemelli & Michelle Macabre.
Intro/Witness
Director – Donald Farmer.
Rebecca Rinehart (Woman in Peril)
Crimes & Felines
Director – Tim Ritter.
Shannon Stockin (Irena), Jason Boyd (Kent), Tim Ritter (Louis), Katrina (Natasia)
Of Cats & Men
Director – Blair Kelly.
Blair Kelly (Mal), Joshua Gotte (Brandon), Erica Rowell Green (Tonya)
Storm Window
Director – Curtis Everett.
Curtis Everett (Raymond)
Apocalypse Meow
Director – Logan Winton.
Josh Ward (Oliver), Jesse Welch (Jerry),
Cat Burglar
Director – Melvin Pittman.
Serena Salieri (Gracie), Melvin Pittman (Detective Richards), Mitchell Rhodes (Detective Simmons)
Nightmare at 10,000 Feet
Director – James M. Myers.
Julian Betts (Julian), William Lewin IV (Wish), Blake Blasko (Gremlin)
Cosmic Catnado
Director – Jerry Williams.
Jerry Williams (Astro)
Plot
The countryside is being terrorised by Catnados – tornados made up of vicious cats. Crimes & Felines:- Irena reunites with her boyfriend Kent as he gets out of jail. They rob a woman but then end up caught in a catnado. Of Cats & Men:- Mal ends up crashing into the vehicle of Brandon just as a catnado comes. Storm Window:- Raymond is in his storm shelter but the cats manage to get in the window and prey on his mind. Apocalypse Meow:- Two friends are disbelieving of the catnado warnings until the pet cat turns feral. They respond by becoming cat-killing vigilantes. Cat Burglar:- Detectives investigate as people seem to be abducting all the cats. Nightmare at 10,000 Feet:- Two friends are flying a small plane when a cat lands on top and starts tearing the plane apart. Cosmic Catnado:- The space hero Astro deals with a cosmic Catnado.
After Sharknado (2013) became a bad movie hit, there were a sporadic number of other ‘-nado’ films – Clownado (2019), Arachnado (2020), Firenado (2022), Monsternado (2023) and Amityvillenado (2026). Catnado is an Anthology produced by Donald Farmer, a director who has been working in exploitation since the 1980s with titles such as Cannibal Hookers (1987), Vampire Cop (1990), An Erotic Vampire in Paris (2002) and Shark Exorcist (2015), among a good many others.
Catnado is a pitifully made film. Often scenes with the actors playing interviewed survivors seem to be being improvised as they go along. The sound quality is often poor. There are some visual effects of the catnado but in most of the episodes it is not shown, nor even any of the devastation, and so the story is about the events other than the catnado where it is merely talked about or in a few instances a couple of digital shots of the catnado whirling in the sky.
Crimes and Felines comes from Tim Ritter, a director who has been as work in low-budget exploitation as long as Farmer has with films such as Truth or Dare (1986), Wicked Games (1994) and Sharks of the Corn (2021). (Ritter can also be seen in the episode, playing the man that Shannon Stockin is staying with that she walks out on at the start of the episode). This is one of the less terrible episodes and builds an okayish story as Stockin and her ex-Jason Boyd are reunited after he get out of jail then plan a heist and snatch an old lady’s purse. This goes okay but the episode falls apart when it comes to the crappy catnado attack scenes that culminate the episode.
Of Cats & Men is also passable where the drama is focused around a middle-aged man (the episode’s director Blair Kelly) getting into a fender bender and then being taken to the home of the other driver. There is some embittered past between the two that comes to the fore, before everything is interrupted by the catnado – cue more shitty digital effects.
The episode that plunges Catnado into the excruciatingly unwatchable – although is not the worst that the show gets – is Storm Window where director Curtis Everett plays a Christian believer who obsessively reads his Bible in his storm shelter only for the cats to get in. This would not be so bad but for the fact that the cats get to talk as they sit around taunting him. Here we get ordinary cats where dialogue has simply been dubbed over the top as they do regular cat things. For some reason, the cats speak in an imitation of Peter Lorre’s distinctive voice.
Apocalypse Meow is a segment that has more plot, following two friends who see their domestic cat go feral, while in the latter half they turn vigilante cat hunters. This is okay with passable performance but starts to lose its impetus when it gets out of the house.
Nightmare at 10,000 Feet is a parody of The Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (1963), later remade as one of the segments of Twilight Zone – The Movie (1983). We get a mock-up of a small plane with two pilots where the gremlin is represented by someone in a cat suit on the outside. It at least seems to be making an effort but is too brief to hold any real story.
Cat Burglar is an aimless, plotless piece involving detectives running around with sound that is frequently made inaudible by the wind drowning out dialogue. However, this is eclipsed by Cosmic Catnado, the segment that takes place during the end credits, which is so random and incoherent as to be utterly unwatchable. As far as I can make out, it is some kind of space opera action that mostly consists of people randomly saying things in front of a camera and talking about the cosmic catnado. This would appear to be an outshoot of director Jerry Williams’ web series Astro Space Hero (2010-5). It had the feel of being directed, acted and edited by people who were under the influence of hallucinogens. A lot of them.
(Winner in this site’s Worst Films of 2022 list).
Trailer here