MY REVIEW OF IT!!!!

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THE BLACK CAT(1981)
(Directed by Lucio Fulci)

Plot: A small Irish village is plagued by mysterious accidents(murders?). The strange thing is, the alleged murderer appears to be a black cat.

Review:

I remember watching “The Black Cat” awhile back. At the time, I wasn’t impressed, which I believe I stated in Dario Argento’s version of “The Black Cat” in “Two Evil Eyes”. Anyway, I decided that I should review all of Fulci’s horror flicks and decided to check this one out once more. Surprisingly, I found myself liking it this time around. Maybe it’s because I know a bit more about camera work? Well, who knows, but the end result was much better.

“The Black Cat” is obviously loosely(very loosely) based on the story of Edgar Allen Poe. I know very little of that story, but I can tell you this is not much of an adaptation. Sure, there are some parallels between the two stories, especially with the ending, but otherwise it’s an adaptation only in name. This was actually made during Lucio Fulci’s golden age, where his career was mostly shining. It began with “Zombie”, continued with “The Smuggler”(my least favorite), “City of the Living Dead”(my personal favorite), “The Black Cat”, “The Beyond”(which many people consider to be his best), “House by the Cemetery”, “New York Ripper”(his most controversial) and then it finally ended with “Manhattan Baby”(I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s considered to be the worst of all these). Considering the two movies “Black Cat” was made in between, it feels quite small in comparison. Perhaps that’s why nobody notices it.

Our story begins with some poor guy getting into his car and going for a drive. However, he doesn’t notice the titular black cat enter his back seat. He notices the cat, who appears to hypnotize him, causing the car to crash. The driver is instantly killed. We then follow cat trekking through the village before finally reaching Professor Miles’s house. We learn Miles owns the cat, but the cat seems hostile to him. Anyway, enter generic American photographer Jill, REALLY generic American photographer Jill. Jill is taking some pictures of tombs, and finds a little gadget that we later finds out belongs to Miles. Anyway, we see Miles often stalks around in graveyards, trying to communicate with the dead. When Jill learns of this, she goes to visit him, deducing that he dropped the little gadget thing we saw in the tomb. Meanwhile, mysterious deaths are occurring, appearing to be caused by the cat.

Baffling the local Sergeant, he calls for an Inspector from Scotland Yard. Hence, enter generic Inspector Gorley, who arrives in the town speeding like crazy. Gorley begins to investigate the deaths, but they make little sense and he’s at a loss of what is going on. Gorley meets Jill when he needs a photographer to photograph the bodies, and Jill begins to believe the cat is involved. Jill begins to investigate……..blah, blah, blah. Wow, this summary was really hard to remember.

One reason for contempt against this film is that Fulci’s usual crew appears to be MA this time around. Dardano Sacchetti, his usual screenwriter, did not pen this script. This didn’t bother me, as the story is more coherent this time around. Fabio Frizzi, who usually did the score, didn’t write the score for this one. Being that the score is actually very good(sometimes better than Frizzi, sometimes not), I didn’t mind this either. Fulci’s usual producer, Fabrizio De Angelis, is also absent here. But you’d never guess. However, Sergio Salvati(his cinematographer) is still around, and he usually is what makes these movies good anyway. Al Cliver and Daniela Doria, Fulci’s most reoccurring actors(and whom he loves to kill off in terrible ways), also return. So my point is that Fulci can still make a true “Fulci” film without the same people. Although granted, losing Salvati was a devastating blow for him(their collaboration ended only 2 movies later).

The movies greatest strength is its locations. This village reeks of gothic visuals. Basically, this movie has characters moving from one gothic location to the next. When we follow the cat early on, we see the more attractive side of the village. Then when we see Miles’s house, we think “what kind of crazy old man lives here?”. Then we see Miles and think “Oh”. His house just looks strange, foreboding and menacing. Then we have the graveyard, which has to be the scariest graveyard since “Tombs of the Blind Dead”. The gravestones look ominous enough, but adding fog turns it into a stereotyped graveyard, which is perfect for movies. At night, this village looks like a horror movie village, and why not? I haven’t even gotten to the tomb scene, which is 100% pointless macabre. If I seem like I’m being negative or sarcastic on this, I’m not. Personally, I love movies with gothic atmosphere, especially when they go all out with it.

Apparently Fulci himself doesn’t have much of an opinion of this movie, as he claims he only did it for money. However, that doesn’t stop him from doing a good job. Considering his later movies would be the atrocious “Demonia” or even worse, “Ghosts of Sodom”, either Fulci still felt obliged to do his best or he wasn’t as uninspired as he claims. He gives us lots of cat POV’s(cat cam!), lots of close-ups on the eyes, some cool uses of deep focus, some suspense and he milks the moody atmosphere for all its worth. There is also one very disturbing claustrophobia scene, which is repulsive and haunting at the same time. There are some cool stills here if you freeze the screen, showing that while Fulci may have only did this for financial reasons, he still put a lot of effort in it.

While the script is more coherent than usual, it’s not necessarily good. The characters are bland, and the relationships are even worse, but I can get over that when watching a spaghetti horror flick. However, I did feel that the movie lacked consistency with the script. For example, the relationship between Miles and the cat makes little sense. On one hand, the cat seems to want to bring Miles down(as Miles constantly says), but at the same time, the cat almost seems to want to protect Miles. The cat’s actions don’t always make sense, and I felt that the script was probably rushed. The extent of the cats powers also is never really explained. If the cat can just hypnotize people, why bother killing them in more conventional methods? How did the cat cheat death? This last point might not be a very good one, as I presume it has something to do with Miles’s experiments. But in short, a lot of it doesn’t made sense. Usually I can get around this(as most of Fulci’s movies in this period tend to not make sense), but instead of generating a sense of fear(example, in Fulci’s previous movie, a character supposedly dies and wakes up about to be buried in a coffin with no explanation on what happened), which these nonsensical movies tend to do, it just creates confusion. The pacing also feels uneven. At times, it glides by, at times, it’s slow.

Patrick Magee(Miles) makes his character interesting. He evokes charm, wit, isolation but can also be frightening and tragic at the same time. Mimsy Farmer(Jill) does fine, but her character is too bland and she does nothing to make it interesting. David Warbeck(Inspector Gorley) doesn’t seem very enthusiastic, but he’s charming enough to give his character a spec of interest. His acting, once again is fine. Al Cliver(Sergeant Wilson) gives one of his better performances. Props to that cat, who gives an amazing performance. I’m not sure how the trainers got it to do what it did(while it’s obvious that the growling was dubbed, it still is unsettling). However, I fear there may have been some animal cruelty on the set.

“The Black Cat” is a decent Fulci film. It’s not on par with his best works, but far superior to his lesser works. It has its flaws, mainly to do with the script, but also in its pacing. But I found myself loving it’s gothic interiors and exteriors, mixed in with Fulci’s slick camera and moody atmosphere. Now, is it better or worse than Argento’s version of the same story? In my review for Argento’s film, I said his film was better. Now that I’ve re-watched Fulci’s version, I’m going to say Fulci’s might be slightly better.

Violence: Rated R. Some graphic cat attacks, mixed in with a burning scene that sometimes is frighteningly realistic while other times being laughably fake, as well as an impaling scene. But the harshest is the decomposing corpses of characters who suffer a claustrophobic fate. Still, it’s not as gory as his other works.

Nudity: One girl(Doria, in fact) goes topless.

Overall: “The Black Cat” has some gore, but isn’t a gore-fest. Instead, it is a small scale gothic horror film. It’s not as frightening as it could’ve been, but it’s still worth watching if you’re into Fulci’s gothic horror flicks. But it did take me two viewings to like it. I’m torn between a 2.5/4 rating and a ¾ star rating. I’m going to go with the higher rating, but keep in mind it barely gets it.

3/4 Stars

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