Five days before Christmas, a gift no one wanted or needed was projected onto the silver screen: “Cats” (2019). This film will go down in history as the multi-million dollar cinematic phenomenon that no one wanted to see, but probably saw anyway. Like countless others who now regret it, I saw “Cats.” I had very low expectations for the film, because with my knowledge of theatre, I already knew that this film would not, could not and should not be given any inkling of praise.

For those who are unaware, “Cats” (2019) is the latest screen adaptation of the scarring yet popular Broadway musical “Cats,” which originally premiered in 1982. This stain on American theatre is based on the haphazard 1939 collection of T.S. Eliot poems “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” about a tribe of cats called the Jellicles who want to ascend into cat heaven—the Heaviside Layer—and gather yearly to decide who will get to ascend to a new life, all at the discretion of the supreme cat, Old Deuteronomy.

With a star-studded cast featuring household names like Taylor Swift, Jason Derulo, Judi Dench, Idris Elba, Rebel Wilson and Jennifer Hudson, this movie should have been spectacular—stellar even. I knew that anything based on the aforementioned nightmare of a musical could not be, but I was still surprised at just how bad this cinematic experience was and the frequency and intensity of my visceral reactions to the melee of CGI monsters in front me.

Like most people, I didn’t want to see it alone, so I went with three of my friends. I shouldn’t have brought them. I shouldn’t have gone at all; we should have stayed at home. Besides the four of us in the theater, there were three other people. Although I didn’t talk to the three movie patrons sitting several rows in front of us, I am certain that they had a very similar experience.

The moment the first cat showed up on the screen, I was thrown emotionally asunder—it was just so human-looking. Francesca Hayward, the ballerina who played Victoria, is a beautiful dancer and her movements across the screen were captivating to watch, or at least they would have been if she wasn’t physically portrayed as a freakish feline fiasco. Overall, the choreography for this film was superb and wonderfully executed. The issue is that everyone looked like they woke up and couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be a cat or a human, so they chose to be both, complete with human hands and feet to fuel anyone’s nightmares. From that point on, anytime one of the Jellicle cats did anything, I shuddered from discomfort and sheer horror, especially as they proceeded to interact with each other with an energy similar to that of animals in heat. As I watched these interactions, I realized I wasted my money and however much gas it took to get me to the theater.

But, if there was ever a reason to go it would be the cast. As previously stated, this film only had the best of the best; Jennifer Hudson stars in this movie as Grizabella, the outcast who sings the redemption song “Memory”. Some would say it’s the best song in the entire libretto—I don’t really like any of them, but I dislike this one the least so I’ll agree. Of course Jennifer Hudson knocked it out of the park, because she is Jennifer Hudson and that’s what she does. To be honest, she’s the only bright spot in this black hole of a film, even if she was portrayed as one of the shudder-inducing hybrid quadrupeds that “Cats” has the great misfortune to be about.

The catch-all to the reasoning behind this quite possibly being the worst movie of 2019 is that it’s based on one of the worst musicals to ever grace the Great White Way. “Cats” is garbage. The plot is horrid, and while it is based on a collection of poems by T.S. Eliot, that does not mean that they should have been adapted for the stage. They should have been left in the book where they belonged. This kitty tribe should never have seen a spotlight. The world didn’t want to see life-size cats rolling around on the floor and singing in what can only be described as a musical orgy reminiscent of canned tuna and kitty litter. They still don’t want to. A disservice has been done to T.S. Eliot that can never be erased. “Cats,” as a piece of theatre, is a fever dream fueled by the haze of the 1980s.

As any self-proclaimed theatre kid will tell you, this movie could not have been good because the musical isn’t good. Trash produces trash. You can’t expect to make a masterpiece out of an artwork that’s the equivalent of a toddler’s refrigerator drawing, no matter how talented the people involved are. Yes, this is the fourth-longest-running show on Broadway, and yes it won a series of Tony Awards including “Best Musical” in 1983, but it was just as ridiculous then as it is now. I would not have left my home to be willingly scarred by this movie if I wasn’t the type of person who didn’t want to miss a cultural moment such as this one. But next time, I will opt for staying out of the loop and being blissfully uncultured, because I did not enjoy “Cats” and I don’t know very many people who did.