The Cat and the Canary is a 1978 horror film directed by Radley Metzger and starring Honor Blackman, Michael Callan, Edward Fox, Wendy Hiller, Olivia Hussey, Wilfred Hyde-White, Beatrix Lehmann, Carol Lynley, Daniel Massey, and Peter McEnery.

It follows a group of potential heirs who are summoned to the mansion of a deceased beneficiary to view the filmed reading of his will, only to discover upon arrival that a deranged killer may have infiltrated the event.

In 1934, on the twentieth anniversary of his death, the remaining relatives (all cousins) of Cyrus West are summoned to his mansion in rural England to view his filmed reading of his last will and testament.

Among them are former surgeon Harry Blythe; flamboyant stuntman Charlie Wilder, who has forged a successful career in California; Susan Sillsby, a noted English hunter; Cicily Young, Susan's female lover, also her cousin and roommate; the marginally successful American songwriter Paul Jones; and Annabelle West, a rising fashion designer.

Cyrus lets it be known in his reading how much he despised and loathed his kin by setting up a dogfight for the fortune and revealing that Annabelle West is to be the sole beneficiary.

As the group prepare to turn in for the evening, they are startled by the arrival of Dr. Hendricks, a psychiatrist at a nearby sanitarium who warns them that a deranged, disfigured patient who believes himself to be a cat has escaped from the institution.

Annabelle alerts the others about the incident, but each have varying levels of suspicion regarding her claims, especially when taking into account the family's history of mental illness and delusions.

Later, when Annabelle falls asleep, the trenchcoat-clad killer enters her room through a trapdoor and steals the necklace from her throat, awakening and terrifying her in the process.

The group is initially suspicious of Annabelle's claims, until Paul locates the trapdoor and, upon opening it, discover's Allison's corpse, her bloodied head wrapped in a pillowcase.

A struggle ensues, during which Annabelle grabs at the killer's disfigured face and removes his rubber mask, showing the culprit to be Charlie.

Pleasant then rush downstairs to save Annabelle, who is about to be mutilated and killed by Hendricks; they enter moments before he is about to stab her, and Paul shoots him dead.

[4] Film and audio works by Metzger have been added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

The murderer is a ripper, but instead of making us watch the mutilation in progress, as most films nowadays would, Metzger instead shows us the killer's grotesque tools lined up neatly on a cloth.