Contrary to some of the more credulous comments posted here, no way is Cat in the Brain "the goriest film ever made". Even mainstream movies such as Romero's Zombies and Day of the Dead are much gorier, as is Fulci's own Zombie Flesh Eaters. (If you want serious gore, check out Peter Jackson's marvellous Brain Dead, aka Dead Alive, the Flymo massacre at the climax of which is probably the single goriest scene ever committed to celluloid.) There are numerous gory moments, sure, but most of the time the SFX are really shoddy and unconvincing; many - most? - of the murderous vignettes are lifted from Fulci's Italian TV movies, and boy, does it show.
The movie itself is very cheap and unbelievably inept. One gets the impression Fulci cobbled it together in about half an hour. The narrative is hopelessly disjointed, and the acting would disgrace a school play. There's also a nasty vein of misogyny running through it: nearly all the murder victims are women, often nude or semi-nude, and their deaths are dwelt on lovingly and at length. This is a lamentable trend in modern horror movies, and Fulci, bless his little cotton socks, has consistently shown himself to be one of the worst offenders. The guy clearly got off on showing women being tortured and killed - New York Ripper, anybody? - and by watching his films, we the audience are participating, albeit vicariously, in the vile behaviour depicted. Where does that leave us, I wonder? (Incidentally, Brian De Palma's thriller Body Double offers an interesting commentary about this uneasy relationship between actress, director and audience in a "stalk and slash" movie.)
Nevertheless, this is an interesting film, if only for the ironic self-reflection in which Fulci indulges. Okay, so it's not a totally original conceit, but the notion of a horror film director feeling constrained by audience expectation such that he can no longer make movies in any other genre is one worth exploring. (Compare the career of Alfred Hitchcock, who complained that if he made a version of Mary Poppins, the audience would be asking "where's the body?") Also, Fulci does appear to be saying that he himself is sickened by the atrocities he depicts, to the extent that they're sending him loopy. Whether or not Fulci really felt the way his character - a film director by the name of, you've guessed it, Lucio Fulci - feels is debatable; after all, horror made him famous, and, presumably, rich. And coming from the director of New York Ripper, any protest he might be making does seem rather disingenuous.
I also like the notion of a film within a film within a film; playing around with the audience's viewpoint, and emphasising the voyeuristic nature of the whole filmmaking process.
Whatever else, Cat in the Brain is worth seeing just for the scene in which Fulci molests a woman during one of his funny turns. When he apologises later, the woman gushes "Ooh, Mr. Fulci, that's the biggest thrill I've ever had in my life!" (or words to that effect). Fulci's reaction? Well, you'll have to see it for yourself, but it had me in stitches.
