Every once in a while, a horror film sneaks up on you—not with jump scares or gore, but with a mood, a texture, a strangeness that slowly digs its claws into your skin. Are We Not Cats is that kind of film.

The story follows Eli (Michael Patrick Nicholson), a drifter whose life is unraveling after losing his job, his girlfriend, and his apartment in one bleak sweep. He stumbles into a chance meeting with Anya (Chelsea Lopez), a mysterious young girl who Eli can’t quite get off his mind. Their connection is magnetic, strange, and unsettling, leading to a relationship that teeters between intimacy and horror. There’s a hint of manic pixie dream girl energy to her, but twisted: less quirky salvation, more glittering danger. Her dilapidated apartment, strung with scarves and fairy lights, is the perfect reflection of her—disconcerting and beautiful at the same time.

When Eli discovers her hidden compulsion of eating hair, it lands like intimacy turned grotesque. It’s not shock for the sake of it—it’s something rawer, stranger, and more intimate. The film shifts into a surreal tangle of obsession, romance, and a hazy, drugged-out nightmare energy. One of my favorite aspects is how real Eli feels —lonely, restless, grasping for meaning in the middle of all the grime. I understood him right away. His quiet desperation makes the horror land harder, because it’s not really about the grotesque transformations—it’s about needing something, anything to fill the void.

The film feels like a fever dream. Grimy, tender, and deeply sad, Are We Not Cats shows what it means to find comfort in someone just as broken as you are. If I had to pin it down in three words: dreamy, bizarre, and tender. The story doesn’t feel like much else I’ve seen, but the atmosphere and effects work give me the same kind of gritty 2010s indie horror vibe as Contracted. It’s gross, intimate, and strangely beautiful.

This isn’t a film for everyone. It’s weird, uncomfortable, and far more interested in mood than plot. But if you like your horror intimate, offbeat, and unflinchingly human, Are We Not Cats is one of those rare films that burrows in and stays there.