Gato Negro

Italy's 'godfather of gore', Lucio Fulci, serves up less splatter and more atmosphere than usual in this surprisingly enjoyable movie (loosely based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe) about a malevolent moggy murdering people in rural England.

Fulci's directorial decision-making is sometimes questionable (just how many close-ups of eyes do you need in one film?), but with a reliable cast that should be familiar to fans of Italian horror, some nice cinematography, several creative deaths (which, whilst not as quite as gory as in other Fulci efforts, are still quite horrific), and a wonderful score from Pino Donaggio, this often overlooked Gothic tale is actually pretty good.

Set in a small English town, The Black Cat sees the titular feline causing a series of deaths after tapping into the suppressed hatred of its psychic owner (Patrick Magee). When the crazy medium finally cottons on to what is happening, he tries to do away with the cat, drugging it and then stringing it up from a tree. But the whiskery menace is no ordinary puss, returning from the dead to exact revenge on its ungrateful owner.

Mimsy Farmer also stars as a pretty American photographer caught up in the supernatural mystery, along with David Warbeck as a police inspector from the city who is called in to help solve the mystery, and Al Cliver as a local rozzer.

A lot of Fulci fans might be put off from watching this effort by the fact that it doesn't contain graphic scenes of eye impalement, head drilling, or gut vomiting, preferring instead to concentrate on generating an eerie vibe. I suggest, even if your love of Fulci is purely down to his usually over-generous servings of gore, that you still give The Black Cat a chance.

The death scenes in this one might not be as violently OTT as in his better known films, but Fulci doesn't entirely wimp out on the nastiness: there are a couple of burnings, an impalement, and one unfortunate couple get nibbled on by rats. Plus, you get a story that mostly makes sense.

And in a Fulci film, you can't really ask for much more than that.

The plot of "The Black Cat" is a real doozy that might have you biting your tongue: creepy old medium Patrick Macnee (who's really overdoing the quivering monotone thing here) supposedly has a psychic link with a black cat, who he orders to kill the residents of a small village. Fulci does well with the flamboyant material, and keeps piling on the gore, atmosphere, and dark sets with gusto. For the most part, the cast (including Euro-vets Mimsy Farmer, David Warbeck, and Al Cliver) doesn't take the material any more seriously than they have to, resulting in some unintentional (but welcome) comic relief. Granted, this isn't "House by the Cemetery"-caliber, but it's not bad, either. 3 out of 5 stars.

Before anyone who hasn't seen this film gets excited that the adaptation of a short story helps Fulci keep hold of his often slippery grasp on the plot, "The Black Cat" has very little to do with Poe's tale until the last 15 or so minutes, and thus is full of the narrative craters B horror fans know and love.

The basic plot of the film is that a Scotland yard detective (David Warbeck) and an American photographer (Mimsy Farmer) investigate a series of "accidents" in a quiet English village. All clues point to an eccentric local medium(Patrick Magee), but the real mystery is the connection between the psychic and the black cat that seems to show up at the scene of each crime.

Lacking the trademark Fulci gore(what there is is very brief), the film focuses on atmosphere. There are a few nice touches (in widescreen format the cat's eye view stalking scenes and the close ups of character's eyes to show emotion work very well), but what keeps the mood from ever really taking off is the cat itself. Given enough screen time to be billed as a full cast member, Fulci never really succeeds in making the animal look possessed or menacing.

In most of its close ups it looks like your average house cat, albeit a bit peeved that you were late with the kibbles and bits. The cheesy snarling sound effects every time it attacks don't help either.

The humans leads are no better (across the board wooden acting), with Magee forced to carry viewer interest in the film by hamming it up as much as possible. Helped along by the overly zealous score, it's amazing that this movie manages not to be as silly as "Touch Of Death".

Overall an amusing trifle, but those looking for gore are better served by just about any other Fulci horror film and those interested in atmosphere are much better served by watching "The Beyond", where the director truly mastered the form.

4.5 stars

This is one of those rare Italian movies where it doesn't pay to have beers during it's playing time, because if you do, you'll be in a coma by the halfway mark.

That's not really a criticism though, because the Black Cat is a nice change of pace from the splatter of early eighties Italian horror. Rather than spend the running time making people vomit up their own guts, Lucio Fulci has sought to bring back the Gothic tone of those late sixties supernatural movies (The Ghost, Blancheville Monster etc).

Patrick Magee (love those eyebrows), is a cantankerous medium taken to wandering graveyards at night, recording the voices of the newly dead. There's plenty of newly dead in this sleepy English town too, which has got something to do with Magee's Black Cat. The two of them spend an awful lot of time staring at each other.

Meanwhile, Mimsy Farmer, a visiting American (I think) photographer, gets interested in Magee and spends her time annoying him at his house, just as cop David Warbreck arrives in town, to help local bobby Al Cliver search for some missing teenagers.

I'm surprised that Fulci managed to create something so coherent during the run of films that included House By The Cemetery and Manhattan Baby. Although not gore-filled, the first half of the film does consist of the cast being stalked and wasted in a variety of ways, and the only time the film falters is when it starts actually following the story of Poe's Black Cat. Plus, you've got great B-movie fodder in the form of Al Cliver (err...great dubbing there), Daniella Doria and the aged, but still lush, Dagmar Lassander.

It wouldn't be a Fulci film without some daftness though, eh? Well, apart from people acting terrified of a cat (although a teleporting, hyper-aggressive cat might be a bit scary), you've got Lassander trying to put out an inferno with a cushion, an absolutely awful bat attack, and I'm still not sure whether to be impressed or start laughing every time Magee appears on screen.

Good enough for any Fulci collection, just don't expect gore. Great soundtrack too!

This is a creepy horror film plenty of suspense, chills, brutal images and gory events. Being loosely based on the story: "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe. Bizarre things are occurring in a small English village beginning when a man driving a car suddenly encounters a strange black cat in the back seat and through the mesmerizing stare, the cat causes the man to crash his car into a lamp post, killing him. The black cat travels back to its home, a rambling old house occupied by Robert Miles (Patrick Magee), a morbid and hostile former college professor of the supernatural who is reputed to be a medium. Professor Miles lives alone except for his equally hostile black cat, and spends his time making audio tape recordings at the tombs of the recently deceased. Meanwhile, a nosy American photographer named Jill Travers (Mimsy Farmer), ventures into an open crypt to take photographs for her scrapbook when she discovers a small microphone on the floor of the place. She is confronted with rare happenings: people are cruelly murdered and some of them are bitten by a cat and a person (Bruno Corazzari) has a lethal fall. But she doesn't know what a new horror is waiting there . Venturing out, she meets the local police constable Sergeant Wilson (Al Cliver) and later a Scotland Yard detective (David Warbeck) arrives and investigates the series of bizarre deaths in the small English village which are connected to a local literacy professor who lives at an old mansion. When you hear this cat breathing down your neck...Start praying!!!. When the black cat cries...someone dies!.When you hear this cat breathing down your neck... start praying... before you finish your Amen... you're dead!.It purrs. It stalks. It kills. Cat got your tongue? It's still hungry. Flesh Ripping Felines!

Spaghetti splatter-meister Fulci, best known for his unbashed ripoffs: ¨Zombie¨ and ¨Gates of Hell¨, tones down the gore this time in a vaguely Poe-ish tale of a medium with some marbles loose -well played by Patrick Magee- whose kitty provides the temporary habitatfor spirits its master calls up. This is a chilling, eerie Italian terror flick full of screams, thrills , intrigue and lots of blood and guts. Production design is pretty good with a nice setting from a dreary English village. And Sergio Salvatti's downright myopic camerawork is original, adding up an opressive viewing experience, especially with the menacing frames and close-ups of the black cat wandering here and there. . This genuinely frightening story with adequate utilization of images-shock is well photographed on location in Hellfire Caves, West Wycombe, West Wycombe Park, Buckinghamshire, England, UK and Italian studios: Incir De Paolis .The orchestral music by Pino Donaggio (Brian de Palma's usual composer) helps a lot to raise the tension, providing poignant moments and elevating the intrigue to the maximum. It's a decently made Fulci film and better narrated and competently developed than his other flicks. This is a classic excruciatingly horror film in which the intrigue,tension, suspense appears threatening and lurking in every room, corridors , cellar, stable, morgue and many other places. This unrelenting shock-feast packs good make-up and special effects make-up by Paolo Ricci, replacing the ordinary Gianetto De Rossi. It's a an Italian/British co-production, financed on a budget enough by Giulio Sbarigia and as associate producer uncredited Harry Alan Towers.

The motion picture was well realized by one of the most controversial filmmakers of terror movies ,Lucio Fulci. He is a gore-feast expert, making many films in his usual style and peculiar trademarks with flaws and gaps but being professionally made because he is a skilled craftsman . He created strange horror thrillers that managed to be both scary and skilfully made, deserving cult status . Fulci made a lot of movies with full of gory, gruesome, and ghastly feasts in which killers, spectra, Zombies or stumbling stiff dead committed astonishing murders . Reviewers are divided over booth the morals and talents of Fulci (1927-1996) who sometimes directed under the alias ¨Louis Fuller¨. For some critics many of his movies are cruel and shockingly violent, yet their gory surface often conceals religious, social commentaries or intelligent issues. Whether he should be viewed as a cheap sensationalist or just a genius Fulci has a loyal fan base and undeniably has an important and unique influence on the terror genre , creating great works on a low budget such as proved in ¨ The black cat ¨, ¨Manhattan baby¨, ¨Gates of Hell¨, ¨Island of the living dead¨, ¨New York ripper¨ , among them. This is one more imaginative horror pictures in which the camera stalks in sinister style . It's just one long unrelenting guts-feast and passable budget horror movie that still packs a punch for those who like to be terrorized out their wits. Gatto nero(1981) will appeal to Lucio Fulci aficionados.