Review #400: 'The Black Cat' (1981)

Following the gruesome gore-fests of Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979) and City of the Living Dead (1980), director Lucio Fulci toned down the violence and adapted the short story of the same name by Edgar Allen Poe. The film, that bares little resemblance to Poe's original story, has Inspector Gorley (David Warbeck) travel to a rural English village to investigate a string of strange deaths and occurrences. Also arriving is photography student Jill (Mimsy Farmer), who finds a strange recording device in a graveyard that traces back to the eccentric Professor Robert Miles (Patrick Magee, the vengeful assault victim from A Clockwork Orange (1971)). Miles is trying to contact the dead, but it is his strange black cat that seems to be committing the murders, and seems to be as murderous towards its owner than it is to its selected victims.

This is a huge change of tone from what I've experienced previously from the Italian 'Godfather of Gore' (surely that title belongs to H.G. Lewis?), and shares more in common with Hammer's horror output and the various Roger Corman adaptations of Poe's work. Yet although the tone makes for a refreshing change, this is still a plodding and silly film, and is far from the director's best work. I've already voiced my puzzlement at how a cat can kill a human in my review of The Corpse Grinders (1971), and the same happens here. A man gets attacked in the street repeatedly by a lunging cat, and I couldn't help but shout abuse at the screen as he flailed about pathetically.

The film is beautifully shot though, and if one thing can be said about Fulci, is that he knows how to shoot a smoky graveyard. His best works The Beyond (1981) and City of the Living Dead involved scenes of beautiful sepia and eerie widescreen shots of various spooky locations, and The Black Cat is no different. The early scene involving Miles attempting to communicate to the dead in a graveyard has a panning shot so beautiful that it almost cemented an extra star onto my rating. But the sheer silliness and tedium of the rest of the film brought me back to reality.

Directed by: Lucio Fulci

Starring: Patrick Magee, Mimsy Farmer, David Warbeck

Country: Italy

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie