The Black Cat

Rating:
Summary: Fulci's worst.
Review: A black cat goes around murdering the inhabitants of a small village. One of Lucio Fulci's lesser known efforts, this is the worst film of his I've seen to date (The Beyond no longer holds that honor). Boring and suspenseless, this one lacks an interesting story, atmosphere, gore and nudity (well, it has some of the latter, but hardly enough), and typically anything that makes a Fulci film rather entertaining in the first place. Zombie is still Fulci's best work to date and The New York Ripper is a suspenseful and scary (if not too sleazy) giallo; watch those instead.

Rating:
Summary: Fulci's worst.
Review: A black cat goes around murdering the inhabitants of a small village. One of Lucio Fulci's lesser known efforts, this is the worst film of his I've seen to date (The Beyond no longer holds that honor). Boring and suspenseless, this one lacks an interesting story, atmosphere, gore and nudity (well, it has some of the latter, but hardly enough), and typically anything that makes a Fulci film rather entertaining in the first place. Zombie is still Fulci's best work to date and The New York Ripper is a suspenseful and scary (if not too sleazy) giallo; watch those instead.

Rating:
Summary: Clarification about Il Gatto Nero
Review: Along with Manhattan Baby, The Black Cat stands as one of Fulci's most maligned movies of this period of his career. Personally, I feel that in many ways this is a much better film than Manhattan Baby, but also not quite as enjoyable. Manhattan Baby reached for stars that its budget and writing never quite allowed it to achieve, failing in many of its attempts but still aspiring to be greater than the sum of it's parts.

The Black Cat is a much more grounded film, allowing the audience's knowledge of Poe's tale, along with the beautifully photographed English landscape to pull the film along. One notices almost right off that this movie doesn't really feel much like a Fulci film at all. There is some gore, but most of it is limited to blood flow, shed without the huge spurting wounds, or chunks of human flesh that the maestro is so well known for. The story moves with a linear feel, not jumping around, or making huge leaps in logic that the average viewer couldn't possibly follow. And the action, while present never hits the nerve shattering breaking point that usually accompanies a Lucio Fulci film.

This movie is more a tribute to the gothic Poe adaptations of Roger Corman from the 60's; as if directed by an eye obsessed Pete Walker. Fulci pulls in the bizarre landscapes, the paranoid actions of the locals. And a lighter, more humorous tone than usually permeates his films, and he does it all beautifully.

The most fun part of this film is by far the title feline himself (or herself, one never really knows). The cat runs and attacks playfully through the movie, dubbed with near lion level roaring, and thrown into the faces of his victims by some off camera hands. Plenty of unintentionally funny scenes occur as a result of this unthreatening cat clawing peoples hands and faces into bloody shreds. But despite these shortcomings, the animal does have a certain personality all its own. Fulci's countless eyeball close ups really make the audience feel as if we are bonding with the cat, which makes the scenes of it's intended demise that much more powerful.

If you are a fan of Fucli, Eurohorror, or Poe, you should be able to find something in this movie that will appeal to you. Don't come in expecting nothing but wall to wall gore, this film is much different than that. But then again, those people who get mad when Fulci's movies aren't wall to wall gore never really understood his work anyway.

Rating:
Summary: Fulci's underappreciated gem.
Review: Along with Manhattan Baby, The Black Cat stands as one of Fulci's most maligned movies of this period of his career. Personally, I feel that in many ways this is a much better film than Manhattan Baby, but also not quite as enjoyable. Manhattan Baby reached for stars that its budget and writing never quite allowed it to achieve, failing in many of its attempts but still aspiring to be greater than the sum of it's parts.

The Black Cat is a much more grounded film, allowing the audience's knowledge of Poe's tale, along with the beautifully photographed English landscape to pull the film along. One notices almost right off that this movie doesn't really feel much like a Fulci film at all. There is some gore, but most of it is limited to blood flow, shed without the huge spurting wounds, or chunks of human flesh that the maestro is so well known for. The story moves with a linear feel, not jumping around, or making huge leaps in logic that the average viewer couldn't possibly follow. And the action, while present never hits the nerve shattering breaking point that usually accompanies a Lucio Fulci film.

This movie is more a tribute to the gothic Poe adaptations of Roger Corman from the 60's; as if directed by an eye obsessed Pete Walker. Fulci pulls in the bizarre landscapes, the paranoid actions of the locals. And a lighter, more humorous tone than usually permeates his films, and he does it all beautifully.

The most fun part of this film is by far the title feline himself (or herself, one never really knows). The cat runs and attacks playfully through the movie, dubbed with near lion level roaring, and thrown into the faces of his victims by some off camera hands. Plenty of unintentionally funny scenes occur as a result of this unthreatening cat clawing peoples hands and faces into bloody shreds. But despite these shortcomings, the animal does have a certain personality all its own. Fulci's countless eyeball close ups really make the audience feel as if we are bonding with the cat, which makes the scenes of it's intended demise that much more powerful.

If you are a fan of Fucli, Eurohorror, or Poe, you should be able to find something in this movie that will appeal to you. Don't come in expecting nothing but wall to wall gore, this film is much different than that. But then again, those people who get mad when Fulci's movies aren't wall to wall gore never really understood his work anyway.

Rating:
Summary: The Black Yawn
Review: If you can't fall asleep watching this movie then you must be on a cocaine and coffee diet. Fulci fails once again to do anything beyond filming upclose eyeshots of peoples reactions to Casio sounds. Warbeck gives a decent performance as does the guy who got paralysed in A Clockwork Orange, but Fulci must have been planning the other 10 films he released that year, cause this film, like most of Fulci's, lacks any direction outside the aforementioned "suspense shots." Rent it if you must.

Rating:
Summary: The Black Yawn
Review: If you can't fall asleep watching this movie then you must be on a cocaine and coffee diet. Fulci fails once again to do anything beyond filming upclose eyeshots of peoples reactions to Casio sounds. Warbeck gives a decent performance as does the guy who got paralysed in A Clockwork Orange, but Fulci must have been planning the other 10 films he released that year, cause this film, like most of Fulci's, lacks any direction outside the aforementioned "suspense shots." Rent it if you must.

Rating:
Summary: This is Fulci-Lite
Review: It appears that Fulci did not spend a lot of time or effort in producing this retelling of the classic tale of "The Black Cat", as it seems shallow and hurried. The story involves a pretty young photographer who gets caught up in murders in a tiny English village, which may or may not be traceable to mad Patrick Magee and his pet cat. Hmmm...There is a severe absence of trademark gore scenes here, which is why "The Black Cat" never features much in Fulci filmographies. The only really unpleasant scene is the one in which Dagmar Lassander is burned alive, with plenty of close-ups. The English village is all very beautifully shot, and it appears to be on location, but in every scene of tension, Fulci reacts by zooming in on the eyes of the characters, (and of the cat!) Afer scene upon scene of close-ups of eyes, you will be praying for the cat to come and rip yours out! This film came after Fulci's period of greatness, and is nothing more than a stop gap.

Rating:
Summary: Clarification about Il Gatto Nero
Review: Mishap alert and clarification of the confusion: The poster cover for Anchor Bay's DVD of Lucio Fulci's Il Gatto Nero is a WRONG ONE. I believe it belongs to Luigi Cozzi's film of the same title made in 1989, a completely different movie. (BTW this is why the director for this DVD is listed as Cozzi and not Fulci on this page. It is obviously a mistake traceable to Anchor Bay; there is something to be said for commissioning an original artwork, after all) However, the content of the Anchor Bay edition is unmistakably a Fulci film. Come on, the styles of Cozzi and Fulci are as different from one another as those of Woody Allen and Michael Bay are... it is IMPOSSIBLE to mix these two directors up!

Rating:
Summary: Fulci experiments with old tales with spectacular results
Review: Most whine this film sucked because it wasn't about zombies or supernatural nuns getting crucified, but this was great. Better than I expected. Don't expect gore, but the death scenes are very creative, a lot like Deep Red's death scenes. Real Fulci fans will enjoy this work.

Rating:
Summary: Didn't really seem like a Fulci film.
Review: The Black Cat (Lucio Fulci, 1981)

Always remember, the title credits say the film is 'freely' adapted from Poe's story. 'Freely' may be the understatement of the year. Best not to think on Poe's tale until the final ten minutes.

The killer kitty is at the center of the story, causing a series of accidents in a small Scottish town whose inspector, Wilson (Fulci regular Al Cliver), gets expsterated and calls Scotland Yard. They send in Inspector Gorley (David Warbeck, who also teamed with Fulci for The Beyond the same year). Gorley and Wilson, with the help of plucky American photographer Jill Trevers (sixties biker bad girl Mimsy Farmer), try to solve the crimes while working out what an aging, eccentric mystic (Patrick Magee) has to do with it all.

And now, the part that will make Fulci fans wonder who really directed this movie: there's no eye scene, and there's no spider scene. In fact, it's almost as if Fulci wanted to tone down the gore and make an atmospheric, gothic horror/romance, but without the romance (except for one sex scene that would barely rate a PG-13 today).

Fulci himself considers this movie a disaster. Who am I to disagree? Well, I will, at least in part. It's certainly watchable enough, if confused. It's not Zombi or The Beyond, but it's got its endearing points. Worth a free rental. ** ½