A series of strange deaths are happening in a small England town and they seem to center on a man with psychic abilities who “speaks” to the dead. In every instance, his black cat is at the scene of the murders. Sometimes the cat directly attacks the victims, other times it seems to act as some sort of supernatural force that kills. A visiting photographer from America (Mimsy Farmer) gets tangled-up into the intrigue, as well as an inspector from Scotland Yard (David Warbeck). They both come to the improbable conclusion that this psychic is using the cat to carry out vengeance upon his enemies. But things get even worse! It turns out, the cat is no longer in control of the madman, but is now an unbridled mystical agent. In order to hide who he is and what he’s done, the psychic sees to the killing of the Scotland Yard detective and captures the photographer, sealing her up alive behind a brick wall.
This is Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat. I first encountered this film when Anchor Bay released it in the early 2000s on DVD (my memory might be foggy as to the dates). I went to my local Best Buy on the release date and found it and another movie on DVD and surprisingly, someone had messed up and priced both of the titles for $0.00. I took them to the register and much to the anger of the manager, I got them both from free. I can’t remember what the other film was, but The Black Cat really disappointed me. I was expecting more gore and outright weirdness than what I got. After all, this was made right in the prime of Fulci Madness, when he was churning out City of the Living Dead, Contraband, and The Beyond. Watching it again on blu ray, I have a very different feeling about it. It’s much weirder than I remember, and yes, there isn’t a lot of gore. What we get instead is a strange little tale of gothic horror. This thing just drips with atmosphere. Lots of cobwebs and tons of dark and creepy shots that transform the modern architecture of the time into crypts that rival the best of Bava and others of his ilk. This is no masterpiece, but there’s plenty to recommend. The story itself is, uh, unique. The acting is terrific, and the cat attacks are surprisingly vicious. The other spooky stuff going on in the background just adds to the decaying, decrepit ambiance. Also, there’s a lot of recurring actors from some of Fulci’s other films, so it’s kind of fun to see their friendly faces, as well. Oh, and the Pino Donaggio soundtrack is superb!
This isn’t top-tier, wild-ass Fulci, but it remains a good, solid notch below. The Black Cat is a really good Horror film, especially if you’re in the mood for something gothic and creeping, with a nice dash of weirdness. The story itself hardly resembles the Poe story it is adapted from; only at the very end is there any connection. But that shouldn’t be too much of a bother, since just about every other movie made “inspired” by Poe’s The Black Cat turns out much the same. There’s a cat, it’s black, and it gets sealed into a wall with a corpse. All the rest is pure Fulci, minus the gore.
★★★☆
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