Customer Reviews

The Black Cat

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Along with Manhattan Baby, The Black Cat stands as one of Fulci's most maligned movies of this period of his career. Personally, I feel that in many ways this is a much better film than Manhattan Baby, but also not quite as enjoyable. Manhattan Baby reached for stars that its budget and writing never quite allowed it to achieve, failing in many of its attempts but still aspiring to be greater than the sum of it's parts.

The Black Cat is a much more grounded film, allowing the audience's knowledge of Poe's tale, along with the beautifully photographed English landscape to pull the film along. One notices almost right off that this movie doesn't really feel much like a Fulci film at all. There is some gore, but most of it is limited to blood flow, shed without the huge spurting wounds, or chunks of human flesh that the maestro is so well known for. The story moves with a linear feel, not jumping around, or making huge leaps in logic that the average viewer couldn't possibly follow. And the action, while present never hits the nerve shattering breaking point that usually accompanies a Lucio Fulci film.

This movie is more a tribute to the gothic Poe adaptations of Roger Corman from the 60's; as if directed by an eye obsessed Pete Walker. Fulci pulls in the bizarre landscapes, the paranoid actions of the locals. And a lighter, more humorous tone than usually permeates his films, and he does it all beautifully.

The most fun part of this film is by far the title feline himself (or herself, one never really knows). The cat runs and attacks playfully through the movie, dubbed with near lion level roaring, and thrown into the faces of his victims by some off camera hands. Plenty of unintentionally funny scenes occur as a result of this unthreatening cat clawing peoples hands and faces into bloody shreds. But despite these shortcomings, the animal does have a certain personality all its own. Fulci's countless eyeball close ups really make the audience feel as if we are bonding with the cat, which makes the scenes of it's intended demise that much more powerful.

If you are a fan of Fucli, Eurohorror, or Poe, you should be able to find something in this movie that will appeal to you. Don't come in expecting nothing but wall to wall gore, this film is much different than that. But then again, those people who get mad when Fulci's movies aren't wall to wall gore never really understood his work anyway.

Mishap alert and clarification of the confusion: The poster cover for Anchor Bay's DVD of Lucio Fulci's Il Gatto Nero is a WRONG ONE. I believe it belongs to Luigi Cozzi's film of the same title made in 1989, a completely different movie. (BTW this is why the director for this DVD is listed as Cozzi and not Fulci on this page. It is obviously a mistake traceable to Anchor Bay; there is something to be said for commissioning an original artwork, after all) However, the content of the Anchor Bay edition is unmistakably a Fulci film. Come on, the styles of Cozzi and Fulci are as different from one another as those of Woody Allen and Michael Bay are... it is IMPOSSIBLE to mix these two directors up!

The name Lucio Fulci is infamous among the circles of horror fans, and a synonymous of gore, and blood soacked films. However, in the case of the black cat, this does not apply. The black cat is freely adapted from a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, and its more like a mystery film, than a horror film, since the gore level is minimal. The story is about a series of murders that take place in a small english village, and the investigation of a scotland yard inspector, who tries to reveal the murderer, suspecting him to be a local medium who has the ability to communicate with the dead. This is not the typical fulci film, and fans who expect that it will be gory will probably be disappointed as it tends to be more like a mystery than a horror film. As far as the supplements of the disc are concerned, they're minimal, with only a fulci biography and a theatrical trailer. The quality ( on the Anchor Bay DVD )of the picture is sharp, with vibrant colors but there are some occasional blemishes and scratches, and the most disturbing thing is a set of two vertical lines that appear every now and then on the right side of the screen , and keep appearing till the very end of the film. The sound is in mono, the dialogues are clear with no hissing and crackles. All in all, not the typical fulci flick, but a pleasant film to watch aimed mainly for the fans.

A Lucio Fulci film without popping eyeballs, perforated skulls, and oozing entrails? Who'da thunk it? Well, that's exactly what you get with The Black Cat (1984) aka El Gatto nero, originally released in 1981 (I believe 1984 was when it was released in the states). And you know what? It's actually not a bad film, although Fulci fans would probably disagree, seeing as how they were probably expecting the visceral, gooey mayhem found in some of his other films released around the same time, like Zombie (1979), City of the Living Dead (1980), and The Beyond (1981). Very loosely based on the Edgar Allan Poe story, the film was co-written and directed by Fulci. Appearing is Patrick `Shrubs for Eyebrows' Magee (A Clockwork Orange, Asylum), Mimsy Farmer (Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Autopsy), David Warbeck (Twins of Evil, The Beyond), and Al Cliver (The Beyond, The New Gladiators)...apparently Fulci himself was in the film, portraying a doctor, but those scenes got deleted...I'm curious as to why a director removes the scenes from his own film, scenes in which he appears in...couldn't he take direction from himself? Whatever...

The movie starts off in what looks to be a quaint, English town, and we see a man walking towards a car. We also get a point of view perspective from something low to the ground, so I'm assuming it's a cat, given the title...no great, intuitive leap there. Anyway, the man drives off, notices a huge, black cat in the back seat, which puts some sort of eyeball whammy on him, the car crashes, and the man's head has an untimely meeting with the windshield. As the auto bursts into flames, we see the cat slinking along, assumedly back to its abode, where we meet the town oddball Professor Robert Miles (Magee)...the cat and Miles obviously do not get along as the feline tags him good. Next we see a woman, later we find out her name is Jill (Farmer), taking pictures of some ruins, and discovering an underground passage to an old torture chamber, complete with cobwebby skeletons (hey, a giant hole in the ground, let's investigate!)...some stuff happens, and then we see a young couple sneaking into a boathouse to smooch...uh oh, here comes that darn cat. Some other stuff happens and now its night and we're in a graveyard with Miles, and he seems to be trying to communicate with the dead...oh bruther...anyway, Jill, being the exceptionally nosy woman she is, seeks out the nutter Miles, and gets an earful about what he's trying to do...some more mysterious deaths occur (seems the corpses have cat scratch fever), and Jill gets suspicious and even more nosy (just like a woman). Just what is the strange relationship Miles has with his pussy?

I did enjoy this film, but that's not to say it didn't have problems. There are some really wonderfully gothic location shots, along with some very creepy set pieces, but the story was fairly disjointed and required the viewer to make certain intuitive leaps without very much to go on...what exactly was the point of Miles efforts in talking to the dead and how did it fit in with the story? I really have no clue...it did serve to set up a meet and greet between Miles and Jill, but if that were the only reason for its inclusion, it was entirely overblown as there had to have been a much easier, quicker, more sensible device used to facilitate their coming together. And what exactly are these dead people telling him? "Well, I'm in a dark, dank, musty box, my bits and pieces are falling off, there are lots of bugs, and I just don't feel myself...anything else you want to know, brainiac?" This is one of those films where it seemed like all the pieces where there, but they just weren't put together to create a viable picture. As I mentioned earlier, fans of Fulci's more grotesque cinematic ventures will be disappointed with this film, as there's so little blood (there is some, along with some nekkiedness...the movie may not be full on Fulci, but it's still Fulci). I really didn't mind the film lacking in the visceral, as it was pretty cool to see what Fulci could do with a film sans the elements he's probably best know for...and like I said, he did all right. I haven't read Poe's short story this film is supposed to be based on, but I did get a sense a great deal of the material here wasn't in the original story (artistic interpretation can go far when it comes to movies based on previously printed works). Some aspects did feel incorporated like the relationship between Miles and the cat, and the bit near the end when Miles is doing the brick and mortar work in his cellar (looks like a union job to me)...that particular scene, I thought, was shot very well, from the point where the audience was behind the wall as he was building it up, the light slowly disappearing (actually, most all of the cellar sequences were pretty cool). If you got the claustrophobia this will really give you the creeps. As far as the performances went, I thought everyone did pretty well. The real standout was Magee, as he seemed locked into intense mode throughout the film, throwing his crazy man stare about. Was the film actually scary? Not really...there were some tense sequences, but nothing that stuck with me once the credits started rolling.

Anchor Bay Entertainment provides a very good-looking anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) print on this DVD, along with a suitable Dolby Digital mono audio track. I did notice some lines in the print, on the right hand side of the screen from time to time, but it didn't happen often, so no big shakes. There are some extras, including an original theatrical trailer, a Lucio Fulci bio, liner notes by Travis Crawford (located on the flipside of the DVD cover artwork), and a 5X7 reproduction of original poster art on the DVD insert, the flipside featuring the chapter stops. If you're interested in buying this DVD, I'd suggest doing what I did and buying the Anchor Bay DVD Fright Pack: Man's Worst Friends, which features six films including Parasite (1982), Lucio Fulci's The Black Cat (1989), Slugs: The Movie (1988), Bruno Mattei's Rats: Night of Terror (1984), Zoltan, Hound of Dracula (1978), and Dario Argento's The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971). It's available here on the Amazon website, at a really good price, and cheaper than buying the individual releases.

Cookieman108

By the way, I don't think I've ever seen a film that featured as many shots of cat's eyes as this one did...if you're a fan of that kind of thing, Heaven awaits...

The black cat is one of my scarist movie the i have seen about
a cat.since stephen kings cat eyes i found this very good and
very intersting.how the devils cat follow the victims and killed
them one by one .this film is very good i loved it and it has
a very good endig. it has blood but no gut sences but i like it.
a lot fist time seen it.the black will scare you were ever you go in the
nigt. you will be afriad.by henry. may 23,2002 thurday

If you can't fall asleep watching this movie then you must be on a cocaine and coffee diet. Fulci fails once again to do anything beyond filming upclose eyeshots of peoples reactions to Casio sounds. Warbeck gives a decent performance as does the guy who got paralysed in A Clockwork Orange, but Fulci must have been planning the other 10 films he released that year, cause this film, like most of Fulci's, lacks any direction outside the aforementioned "suspense shots." Rent it if you must.

This is one of my favorite Fulci films. I personelly think the only reason this film is marked down is for its lack of gore, which I find unjust. Shure the film doesn't have a lot of gore. But the plot, cinematography, and the super natural overtones were superbe! Any Fulci/Poe fan should check this one out. Also if anyone even remotely liked the Black Cat story in Roger Corman's Trilogy Of terror should see this film aswell(interesting bit of trivia: Fulci made this film as part of a tribute to Roger Corman's The Black Cat in Trilogy Of Terror). jak

The Black Cat (Lucio Fulci, 1981)

Always remember, the title credits say the film is freely adapted from Poe's story. Freely may be the understatement of the year. Best not to think on Poe's tale until the final ten minutes.

The killer kitty is at the center of the story, causing a series of accidents in a small Scottish town whose inspector, Wilson (Fulci regular Al Cliver), gets expsterated and calls Scotland Yard. They send in Inspector Gorley (David Warbeck, who also teamed with Fulci for The Beyond the same year). Gorley and Wilson, with the help of plucky American photographer Jill Trevers (sixties biker bad girl Mimsy Farmer), try to solve the crimes while working out what an aging, eccentric mystic (Patrick Magee) has to do with it all.

And now, the part that will make Fulci fans wonder who really directed this movie: there's no eye scene, and there's no spider scene. In fact, it's almost as if Fulci wanted to tone down the gore and make an atmospheric, gothic horror/romance, but without the romance (except for one sex scene that would barely rate a PG-13 today).

Fulci himself considers this movie a disaster. Who am I to disagree? Well, I will, at least in part. It's certainly watchable enough, if confused. It's not Zombi or The Beyond, but it's got its endearing points. Worth a free rental. ** ½

It appears that Fulci did not spend a lot of time or effort in producing this retelling of the classic tale of "The Black Cat", as it seems shallow and hurried. The story involves a pretty young photographer who gets caught up in murders in a tiny English village, which may or may not be traceable to mad Patrick Magee and his pet cat. Hmmm...There is a severe absence of trademark gore scenes here, which is why "The Black Cat" never features much in Fulci filmographies. The only really unpleasant scene is the one in which Dagmar Lassander is burned alive, with plenty of close-ups. The English village is all very beautifully shot, and it appears to be on location, but in every scene of tension, Fulci reacts by zooming in on the eyes of the characters, (and of the cat!) Afer scene upon scene of close-ups of eyes, you will be praying for the cat to come and rip yours out! This film came after Fulci's period of greatness, and is nothing more than a stop gap.

Look at the way this film is directed.Only Lucio Fulci can make a film wich is like this one. It is hard to explain with words how the fealing is in Fulci's movies, but it it is there in all his films, and if you are a true Lucio Fulci fan, you know that "The Black Cat" is only made by him. Not by Luigi Cozzo!!