Sexy Cat

This film could be described as something of a cross-over between the Fumetti and the Giallo, though whether or not it was really intended I don't know. I would be happy to believe that it was intended; but this film was written and directed by Julio Pérez Tabernero, who also wrote and directed the mind-numbingly awful Cannibal Terror...so I'm tempted to think that he didn't know what he was doing. Ever. Anyway, if I had to place it in one genre or the other; I'd probably call this a Giallo, just because the Fumetti part of the story only really gets a passing mention as part of the set-up for the plot. Anyway, the film focuses on the production of a film called Sexy Cat; based on an Italian comic book (a "Fumetti"). An artist hires a private detective as he believes that he wrote the comic book and has not received any credit. However, the artist is soon found with his throat cut, and it has been done in the same style featured in Sexy Cat. Never one to skip a job, the detective then decides to hunt down the person responsible for the murder...and the bodies soon start to pile up.

I should mention that the copy of this film in my possession is awful. The picture quality verges on unwatchable and the sound is not much better. However, while I'm sure that this film would be better with decent picture and sound quality; it's also clear that it's not the best Giallo ever made either. The film is very short, running at around eighty minutes; and this isn't nearly enough time to tell the story properly. There's not much in the way of atmosphere either and despite featuring a Fumetti as a major story point; the film incredibly lacks style too. The plot itself feels rather tired and I can't say I ever really cared what the resolution to the story was going to be. On the plus side, however, the killer's modus operandi is rather good and it's imaginative too, which is a bonus. There's a couple of good death scenes; but nothing too outstanding, especially considering that this film was released during the Giallo's heyday. Overall, this film might be of interest to Giallo fanatics despite it's shortcomings but I wouldn't recommend going to a lot of trouble tracking it down. That being said, I'd give it another watch if a decent DVD version was released.

Although existing prints of this movie look absolutely horrible, this is a very interesting film, especially considering that it came from Julio Taberno, who would go on to direct THE worst cannibal film ever "Cannibale Terror"(and that's saying A LOT). This is mostly Spanish production, but it combines two different types of then-popular Italian exploitation films--the gialli and the fumetti. The gialli should be pretty familiar to everybody; the fumetti were actually Italian comic books for adults (kind of a European forerunner to graphic novels), but they served as a basis for a number of films in the late '60's and early '70's like "Barbarella", "Diabolik", "Satanik", and "Baba Yagi-the Witch".

This film is actually centered around an entirely fictional fumetti called "Sexy Cat", which like many real fumetti at that time is being made into a movie, much to the displeasure of the original author who feels he's been cheated. Then in giallo fashion someone starts knocking off many of the people associated with the movie disguised as the "Sexy Cat" character herself come to life! I don't want to give away the ending, but it should gratify disgruntled comic book nerds everywhere.

This kind of movie kind of lacks the delirious, over-the-top style of the Italian gialli, which might be due to the hack director or simply because whatever style it does have is lost in the crappy prints. It's also much tamer than the gialli films both with regards to violence and, especially, to sex and nudity (despite the presence of no-clothes horses like Jess Franco regular Kali Hansa and Paul Naschy regular Dianik Zurakawa). The lead actress is Lone Fleming, who was in Amando Ossorio's "Tombs of the Blind Dead" that same year. But this is a very odd Euro-horror film in that it's strength is not really in its directing or its acting, but in the plot. I guess I'd recommended this to anybody (especially if it ever gets a decent DVD release), but anyone who is familiar with any of the genres or people I mentioned will probably want to check it out regardless.

Actor turned director, Julio Perez Tabernero maybe should have remained an actor for this low budget item is pretty poorly put together. Nevertheless it is not as bad as I feared it might be and at least my print is pristine. More a slasher than a giallo although the kills are much and varied. I wasn't particularly impressed with the first but loved the snake and the plastic bag both of which were well done sequences,nicely edited. German Cobos in the lead role is good but his opposite number in the police is terrible, whilst the girls are a mixed lot although they do all look nice and have minimal clothing that just seems to fall off. Very much a murder by numbers exercise though the adult comic strip element does provide the opportunity for some rather splendid artwork and matching real life costumes as would be expected in this early 70s Latin exploration effort. Nothing special but watchable enough and has a couple of unusual elements.

A fumetti-inspired giallo, Sexy Cat stars Germán Cobos as private eye Mike Cash, who is hired to help prove that artist Martin Graham is the true creator of popular comic book character Sexy Cat, and not Paul Karpis, the man who is currently making a mint by selling the TV rights. However, the case turns into a murder investigation after Graham is found with his throat cut, just like in one of the Sexy Cat stories. More murders follow, identical to those in the comic strip, the killer described by a witness as a woman wearing a black costume, black gloves, a mask and with blonde hair. Who is the purr-petrator (I had to get at least one cat pun in) and why are they on a killing spree?

While there are plenty of vicious murders in Sexy Cat - snake attack, suffocation by plastic bag, poisoned clawed glove attack - the whole thing is far more breezy than your average giallo, with a central character who casually encounters death on a regular basis, but never loses his cool, even when one of the corpses is the beautiful woman he has just had a romantic encounter with, He's that easy going! There are plenty more babes in the sea, it would seem.

Mike's investigations go nowhere, during which I admit to getting a little lost about the relevance of some of the characters (Liz St. James?); every avenue ends with another dead body, until a rather ingenious plot development (albeit one that I figured out minutes earlier) helps the investigator to finally work out who the killer is. The film ends with a showdown between Mike and Sexy Cat, the murderer meeting a nasty fate via harpoon and a whopping big metal chopping machine.

As is de rigeur for the giallo genre, there is a fair amount of female nudity and some bright red (albeit not very convincing) gore, plus a gratuitous flaming homosexual for laughs.

5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

Dec 22

Sexy Cat is a Spanish Giallo/slasher that somehow went under the giallo radar for me until now. I suppose the title just didnt sound like a giallo, but it is.

It is quite a fun film with the villain of the piece dressing up as a comic book sexy cat character with steel claws and all.

I certainly had no clue whodunnit, the only thing i didnt like really was the lead actor, who was a total unknown to me, and he didnt really have anything going for him to be a likeable hero, still the ladies appeared to like him.

So dont be fooled by the misleading title it is a worthy giallo/slasher.

7.5 cat claws out of 10.