The Cat Creeps
Universal's first major sound-horror mystery vanished while its Spanish-language companion survived.
Quick facts
- Existence state
- Officially Gone
- Peak stage
- general availability
- Research confidence
- high
- Last verified
What it was
Universal's early sound horror adaptation of The Cat and the Canary.
The Cat Creeps was completed and distributed to ordinary audiences in 1930. Like most American silent features, it circulated on vulnerable film stock in an era before systematic preservation, and no complete publicly accessible print is now known.
Existence timeline
The Cat Creeps is completed as a distributable motion picture.
The finished film reaches ordinary cinema audiences.
Known release prints and original elements fail to enter a complete accessible archive.
The Library of Congress documents the severe loss rate of American silent features and the film's survival status.
Archives and researchers still have no complete moving-image copy available.
Why it ended
The released work disappeared as its known distribution copies and original elements failed to survive. No complete moving-image copy is currently known to survive.
Last confirmed trace
A trailer, soundtrack material and stills remain, alongside the extant Spanish-language version La voluntad del muerto.
What it left behind
The split survival of two language versions shows how preservation can erase one branch of the same production while keeping another.
How we classified it
The archive unit reached normal public release or operation and is no longer obtainable in its original public form.
Verified normal public availability maps to 100 under Arrival Score V1.
Sources & verification
Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.