Sexy Cat

Grahame, an alcoholic artist, gets his throat cut after hiring private detective Mike Cash to help him prove that Paul Carpas, creator of the wildly popular comic strip "Sexy Cat" ("the beautiful murderess!"), stole the original idea from him. The bodies pile up as Cash's quest for his client's killer leads him through the cut-throat worlds of modeling, publishing and television to a mysterious maniac mimicking the fatal feline.

This little-seen Spanish giallo is ahead of its time in concept but suffers from a low budget, lackadaisical direction, and a plot that plays out like a 70s TV detective show. Mike Cash (German Cobos), a Touch Connors' MANNIX lookalike, is a throwback to Philip Marlowe or Mike Hammer with his shady past, code of honor, and love/hate relationship with the law -in this case, one Lieutenant Cole. Models on the make, ambitious actresses, hungry wives, vengeful mistresses, and wealthy widows with names like Honey Lane and Gayle Crystal all offer their honor to the Mustang-driving Mike who always honors their offer but any "on her and off her" is on a juvenile level. Traditional giallo vernacular include black gloves, smoking & drinking, 70s fashions, a decent body count, a dodgy motive, and the obligatory stereotyped homosexual. The Carpas character looks like a play on Guido Crepax, the creator of the European adult comic "Valentina" (which was featured in the same year's BABA YAGA starring Carroll Baker) and the pop-culture killer, clad in black leotard, mask, heels, and waist-length blonde hair, stalks the set of its own TV pilot episode while the comic's sales go through the roof once the killings start. Death is doled out by Venetian knife, coral snake, iron cat-claw, spear-gun, industrial metal shearer, and even a bouquet of flowers but the cheap special effects, including a throat slashing and an eye gouging, make a poor substitution for spectacular set pieces. With a lot more time, effort, and nudity, SEXY CAT could have been reely memorable because it's not often the giallo, pulp fiction, and the graphic novel meet but this mediocre mix does provide some superficial fun in a comic-book kind of way.

The VHS I have is a bad print with bleeding colors and occasional garbled dialog; dubbed in English with Greek subtitles.

"Sexy Cat" is an obscure Spanish giallo with murderous catwoman of the title.The killer wears blonde wig,black body stocking,high heels and razor sharp claws.He or she stalks and murders men and women associated with erotic comic strip called Sexy Cat.There is a fairly bloody throat slashing,death by a coral snake and death by suffocation.Detective Cash starts an investigation and tries to stop elusive catwoman.The film looks grainy,the cinematography is mediocre and the police investigation is dull.However the combination of giallo and "Satanik" like fumetti sounds fantastic for any self-respecting Eurohorror fan.6 out of 10.Julio Perez Tabernero later directed extremely inept cannibal flick "Cannibal Terror".

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.

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.

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.