There are good reviews, there are bad reviews, and then there are the Cats reviews.

The frenzied Twitter reactions to the musical film’s trailer this summer were just the beginning. While, yes, memes of the CGI-ified cat people, questions about their features and abilities, and stories of Jason Derulo’s edited bulge plagued the pop culture discourse ahead of Cats‘ arrival, no one could have truly foretold what absolute chaos the movie would ultimately bring.

The reviews for Cats—which, in an unsettling coincidence, broke the same time as the impeachment vote—are absolutely brutal, ranging from unsatisfied to downright disturbed. What I could have only best described as “freaky” and “a hot fever dream,” film critics have characterized as “a monstrosity,” “a descent into madness,” and “nearly as obscene as The Human Centipede.”

Now, it’s easy to assume the writers are overreacting. Maybe they’re taking the film too seriously, or maybe they don’t understand that Andrew Lloyd Weber’s original theatrical masterpiece—which itself is an adaptation of T.S. Eliot’s 1939 collection of feline poems—transcends practical narrative structure. But, as someone who watched the musical on VHS growing up, sung along with the Broadway cast recording, and crawled around an auditorium in furry spandex for my own high school’s production of the musical, I can assure you, they’re not.

My school’s rendition of Cats in 2010 was interrupted by a minor fire onstage due to a pyrotechnic accident during the Mr. Mistoffelees number, which caused some audience members to evacuate mid-production (no one was hurt; the show went on like nothing happened). And yet somehow I was more terrified—and, I’ll admit, sometimes giddy—watching Tom Hooper’s digitally-enhanced film adaptation during a press screening this week.

Does this mean you shouldn’t watch Cats at all? No. You should absolutely watch Cats. If you’re a diehard fan of the show, you’ll ogle at the choreography and sing “The Rum Tum Tugger” in your seat. Although the digitized film cannot compare to the bewilderingly entertaining live performance, it is definitely the kind of movie you just need to experience yourself.

But if you’re only here for the bad reviews, read the roughest (and funniest) ones below—if you can stomach all of the hairball and litter box puns.

We Watched Cats on Opening Night and Lost All Nine Lives — The staff of Jezebel.

Cats: A Broadway Musical Adaptation Straight Outta the Litter Box — Peter Travers, Rolling Stone. Plus this dek: “This disastrous attempt to bring Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit musical to the screen shouldn’t happen to a dog.”

Cats Is Good. Cats Is Bad. Cats Is Cats. — Alison Willmore, Vulture. In the review itself, she adds, “To assess Cats as good or bad feels like the entirely wrong axis on which to see it. It is, with all affection, a monstrosity.”

Cats review: a sinister, all-time disaster from which no one emerges unscathed — Tim Robey (who gave the film zero stars), The Telegraph.

Cats review – a purr-fectly dreadful hairball of woe — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.

Watching Cats Is Like a Descent into Madness — Matt Goldberg, Collider.

Cats Review: I Have Seen Sights No Human Should See — Alex Crans, io9.

Cats Is A Nightmare That Won’t End — Jill Gutowitz, ELLE.com.

The Cats Movie Is a Boring Disaster Filled With Joyless Pussies — Kevin Fallon, Daily Beast.

The movie Cats doesn’t even know what the musical Cats is about — Aja Romano, Vox.

Cats review: Movie musical is a total disaster — Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post. His lede, however, is the real kicker: “Please wipe this movie from my ‘Memory.'”

Cats Review: A Tragical Mess of Mistoffelees — Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair.

Cats review: You won’t leave the theater purring — Rafer Guzmán, Newsday.

Cats Film Review: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Feline Fantasy Musical Becomes a Garish Hairball — Robert Abele, The Wrap.

Cats Is Impossible to Review — Adam Nayman, The Ringer.

Cats Review: Going to the Dogs — John Anderson, The Wall Street Journal.

Cats leaves behind a memory that’s best forgotten — Brian Lowry, CNN.

Cats review — musical mess is one for the litter tray — Kevin Maher, The Times.

Oh God, my eyes — Ty Burr, The Boston Globe.

Cats review: Nearly as obscene as The Human Centipede — David Sexton, The Evening Standard.

Cats: Spay It — Scott Tobias NPR.

Other pieces with tamer titles contained gems in the text, like this nugget from Manohla Dargis of The New York Times: “[Hooper’s] mistake is that he’s tried to class up the joint. What a blunder!”

And there’s brutal blow from Peter Debruge of Variety:

And this from Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly:

The one from Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times too:

If all of that didn’t scare you from watching the film (or only fueled your excitement to see the craziness in person), then catch Cats in theaters this weekend. Buy Tickets

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